The Dark and the Light

by Josephine Bell

  Again he thought sadly of the gaping chasm that lay between himself and Kate, unbridged, perhaps now unbridgeable. So far apart were they that she must think him deceived by her silly lies. It had been to enlighten her gently in this regard that he had asked her to walk with him in the garden. He had wrecked that opportunity.

  For Katharine’s way, when asked how she had spent the day, was to tell him she went to her father’s house in Paternoster Row to see her parents, sit with her mother, visit together with her their nearer neighbours. But Francis, who also went often to Paternoster Row to spend long hours in Doctor Ogilvy’s library, discussing scholarly matters or recounting Oxford gossip, did as well pay his respects to his mother-in-law and had from her nothing but complaints of Kate’s neglect. He had to promise to take back messages and sometimes delivered them. At which Kate would swear she had been to her home within the week and her mother was getting old, losing her memory, become confused as she had been apt to do these ten years. But she promised to visit there very soon.

  ‘See that you do so,’ Francis had told her, but the very next time he went himself to Paternoster Row Mistress Ogilvy again complained of her daughter’s neglect, though Kate had given him a long account of an imaginary visit to her mother.

  It would not have been hard to discover where she went on these occasions. She would not go an easy walking distance without her maid, nor farther on horseback without a groom to accompany her and look after the horses. But his pride would not let him expose his ignorance of her movements, not even to his kinsman, far less to the servants. Even Walter, the alderman’s confidential man and particular friend on his staff, must not be asked to disclose what he knew. Though he guessed the man knew far too much.

  After a time Francis went in from the garden and up to his sitting room. Katharine was there, sitting quietly on the window seat with a piece of embroidery in her lap and her eyes directed at the sky outside. She did not look round at him as he went in, so he retreated again, ran up to his nursery and was greeted there with squeals and shouts of joy.

  Below on the window seat Katharine heard this welcome, so different from her own. She stamped her foot, laid down her embroidery and going to the cabinet Francis used for his papers, found parchment, pen and ink and scrawled a brief message which she folded and sealed. She took it downstairs, looking for a certain young manservant who had run errands for her once or twice. But instead she came across Lucy Butters, who asked politely, ‘Can I be of use to you, my lady?’

  Out of malice and a certain recklessness, though she knew she could trust the girl, she said, ‘Aye, Lucy, I think you may. I have here a letter for my Lady Frances Howard, the Countess of Essex, in reply to a message from her ladyship delivered to me just now in the garden by Sir Francis. Will you be kind enough to have it conveyed to my Lady Essex at once?’

  ‘Indeed, my lady, I will do so immediately. It is marked where the Countess of Essex may be found?’

  ‘Why yes,’ Katharine said, violet-blue eyes very wide, a little scornful smile on her lips. She turned and went away upstairs, while Lucy, her cheeks burning, took the letter to Walter and gave it to him, saying how she came by it.

  Walter accepted it gravely. A boy from the stables would carry it at once to the address given, he said. Lucy thanked him, equally gravely. When a coach came to Gracious Street the next day to pick up Lady Leslie, it was Lucy who stood by the door watching her ladyship depart. It was Lucy who noted the arms of Essex on the door of the coach.

  Afterwards she went in to her mother but did not say what she surmised. Her heart, as usual, was torn by Lady Leslie’s indifference to her husband, even more so, perhaps, by his acceptance of it. For herself she had long since given up any kind of hope for her future, except a fervent wish that neither her mother nor anyone else would seek to drive her into marriage, for her heart was fixed and would remain so, she told herself.

  Mistress Butters received very carefully the plain news of Lady Leslie’s departure.

  ‘So now my lady attaches herself in that dangerous quarter,’ she said, looking up from the linen she was inspecting.

  ‘Why dangerous?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘There are stories I would not care to repeat to thee,’ her mother answered. ‘My Lady Frances Howard hath an unenviable reputation. For violent attachments and violent hates. And very violent revenges, so they say. But mayhap it is all rumour.’

  ‘I think,’ Lucy said slowly, ‘that you know it to be truth.’

  Mistress Butters made no reply to this but directed her daughter to gather up all the linen that needed repair and take it to the sempstress who would work upon it. But when the girl had gone she sat down to consider this fresh development in Lady Leslie’s affairs and at the same time to plan how to keep Lucy occupied with healthier thoughts, less brooding upon an irreversible situation.

  In pursuit of this object she arranged a visit from Lady Bacon, the young wife of Sir Francis Bacon, who was now rising, both in position and in that fortune he had sought and gone without for so long.

  Alice had married Sir Francis Bacon five years before when he was forty-five and she not quite twenty years of age. She was now therefore some five years older than Lucy, but in spite of this the two girls had met often when they were younger, for Alice had attended school with Lucy, her father, Alderman Barnham, being dead and her mother re-married. Master Angus Leslie had been well acquainted with the alderman, though less familiar with his successor in the widow’s home, Sir John Packington.

  Both Mistress Butters and her daughter had been invited to Alice’s wedding in Maribone Chapel. Lucy had found the elderly bridegroom somewhat ridiculous in his purple velvet clothes. The bride wore cloth of silver and gold, also some. what foolishly magnificent for a girl of very moderate good looks and station. However Sir Francis Bacon was a cousin of the then Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, who had befriended him, encouraging his great intellect in all its many manifestations and also providing for the discharge of some of his heavy and continuous debts. Until, by slow degrees, Bacon was able, by his gradual advancement, to live as finely as he wished.

  The early friendship between the girls survived the wedding. Alice was simple at heart and somewhat arrogant, which made her appear unpleasingly tactless at Court. She sought relief with Lucy from the veiled or open censure she found in high places and though the number of her visits dwindled as the years passed, whenever the two girls did meet, in spite of their disparity of age, which had its effect as Alice hardened, they were still friends.

  Lady Bacon came to Gracious Street in a coach with several manservants in attendance. She was taken direct to Mistress Butters’s apartments where Lucy was waiting with her mother to receive her.

  ‘Still shut away in these north facing rooms, madam?’ she complained, in a voice that expressed amusement mingled with indignation.

  ‘I find them very comfortable, Alice,’ Mistress Butters answered. ‘I trust you find the chamber warm though it do look north?’

  Since a bright fire, part coal, part logs, burned on a wide hearth, Lady Bacon could not pretend she did not enjoy the contrast with her recent journey. So she agreed and took the chair offered her, even asking that it might be set farther from the blaze.

  ‘I will leave you with Lucy,’ Mistress Butters said. ‘I think you know Master Leslie entertains his cousin, Sir Francis, here for the winter together with all his family?’

  ‘I have heard it,’ Lady Bacon said.

  Mistress Butters hesitated. There was a relish in the visitor’s voice, a gleam in her small eyes, that suggested she might be the bearer of just that gossip Lucy’s mother wanted to keep from her daughter. But it was too late to retreat. She left the room, determined to make her absence as short as possible.

  As the door closed behind her hostess Lady Bacon laughed.

  ‘Thy mother was vexed with me,’ she said. ‘I trust I have not offended thee also?’

  ‘Why no,’ Lucy answered. ‘It is true the
room looks north, but we scarcely remember it as a disadvantage.’

  Alice Bacon looked sharply at her friend, but saw no guile in the calm, lovely face. Lucy had misunderstood her as Mistress Butters had not. The latter had seen that she brought unwelcome news of the younger Leslies. To punish the older woman she would give her news to Lucy quickly before she could be interrupted.

  ‘I learned of your visitors from my Lady Leslie herself,’ she said. ‘That much-talked of Court lady hath been missed since my Lady Carr left on the Queen’s progress.’

  ‘I understood she accompanied my Lady Carr only so far as Oxford, where she joined Sir Francis and their children at young Doctor Ogilvy’s house.’

  ‘Knowing Sir Francis would spend the winter here in London,’ said Lady Bacon, in a very sly manner.

  Lucy flushed. She had no wish to protect Katharine but every intention of saving the honour of the family in general.

  Lady Bacon continued with her news.

  ‘My Lady Leslie hath lost no time in establishing herself once more in the King’s Court. This time with my Lady Essex.’

  ‘I know this, Alice. It is no secret in this house.’

  ‘Is that so? Then know you how she is placed. That my Lady Essex’s name is linked and justly so, with that of my Lord Rochester? That he dotes on her? That it is whispered she seeks divorce from her husband, the earl?’

  ‘I have been told of the poor lady’s marriage as a mere child, of the separation of the pair until a few years ago, of their unhappiness. Which is very natural, do you not think so?’

  Lady Bacon laughed, too frankly, too coarsely, too unkindly, Lucy thought.

  ‘It is a good tale, part true, no doubt. Though her chief cause of complaint against Lord Essex is far from natural, they say. She will make it serve. Lady Frances Howard is not to be thwarted, never to be overborne. Much to be feared.’

  ‘Feared!’ Lucy was astonished.

  ‘Feared,’ her friend repeated. ‘It might be well if my Lady Leslie were made aware of that. But I fear she will never believe it, for her own purposes are well served by this connection and her own inclination lies—’

  ‘Whose inclination?’ Mistress Butters said, coming back into the room, followed by a servant with wine and small cakes fresh from the oven.

  ‘We spoke of the Court,’ Lady Bacon said. ‘Lucy takes much pleasure in hearing my tales of intrigue between those great ones. Do you not, Lucy?’

  The girl had risen when her mother appeared and now stood near the window with her back to the room. She said in a low voice, not turning round, ‘Nay, Alice, I take no pleasure in scandal.’

  ‘Who spoke of scandal?’ Alice asked in an even tone, munching one of the little cakes. ‘Not I, I swear. A few rumours of intrigue. No more, no less. You should let me take Lucy to Court, madam, and present her to their Majesties.’

  Mistress Butters said nothing. She regretted leaving the girls together. Times had changed, and Alice Bacon with them. Her old husband neglected her. Their life was still uncertainly provided for and she had borne no children to soften her. This had made her more tactless, more wanting than ever in fine manners. But not less sharp in observation and unkind criticism.

  At the window Lucy said, still not looking round, ‘The sky grows more yellow every minute. We shall have snow.’

  Chapter Four

  The letter that Katharine Leslie had written on an impulse of rage against Francis and the children had borne instant fruit. She had not expected to be commanded quite so soon to Lady Essex’s presence and when the coach arrived for her in Gracious Street she was set into such a fluster that she had no thought but to change into a gown fit for the coming encounter, bundling her hair into a becoming coif that hid its undressed state and adding a pair of pearl-bedecked sleeves, a starched lace collar and some embroidered gloves to achieve a fashionable richness in her attire.

  The coach had taken her direct to Whitehall, where she found more servants in the Essex livery to take her to the countess. Lady Frances Howard, as she was still often known, was sitting by herself before a glowing coal fire. She did not rise when Katharine was announced, but received her visitor’s deep curtsey with a smiling expression of welcome.

  ‘Take off your cloak, madam,’ she said, waving her hand towards a table set at the centre of the room. ‘You will find it too hot else and take a chill when you leave. And pray be seated. I cannot have you stand like a servant.’

  Katharine obeyed, not sorry to show her gown to advantage, flattered by the offer of a chair. Lady Frances watched her, for the vanity she saw in the younger woman’s face greatly amused her. Ambition was there too, and a certain fear that her conduct had been too open in writing for patronage, too transparent in implying how the patronage could take substance.

  ‘Your letter, Lady Leslie, was altogether unnecessary,’ she began gently, deliberately ambiguous, purposely increasing the fear, the anxiety.

  ‘Then I crave pardon, my lady,’ Katharine said at once, ‘I will not any further presume upon your ladyship’s goodness—’

  A slight frown appeared on Lady Frances Howard’s forehead, a slight tightening of her mouth that destroyed its tenderness and gave her whole face a very forceful look.

  ‘Unnecessary,’ she repeated, riding over Katharine’s interruption as if it had not been made, ‘because I am already aware of your service to my Lady Carr, my Lord Rochester’s kinswoman.’

  She paused and Katharine, who was neither cowed nor impressed by the new manner of the countess, said quietly, ‘My Lady Carr hath gone to her own near relations and will not return to London except perhaps for a short visit next summer.’

  ‘That too I have been told,’ said Lady Essex coldly.

  The interview was going badly, Katharine knew, but she did not understand what had happened to make it so. Deep within her she felt a shiver of repulsion. She was in the presence of a beauty equal to, perhaps greater than, her own. But it was not jealousy on that account that disturbed her. Not a knowledge of a far greater strength than hers of mind, of purpose, of wit, of understanding. Her repulsion grew from an inner recognition at a deeper level she did not, could not, with her limited imagination, explain. She was in the presence of a being totally heartless, totally indifferent to others. Her own essential nature, in fact, but so much greater, so much more dangerous in the completeness of its potential for evil that she shrank from the contact. It was as if she had looked in a mirror and seen her own face crowned with the snake locks of a medusa, or the horns of the Evil One himself.

  At that moment, when it seemed that Lady Frances had no more to say to her and Katharine was trying to find some way to escape without the humiliation of being dismissed, the door opened and the brothers Carr came in.

  Both ladies rose to make their curtseys. The men bowed low. Lord Rochester exclaimed, ‘Lady Leslie! We thought you had abandoned us for the dry deserts of Oxford scholarship. Welcome back.’

  But young Alan Carr, taking the hand Katharine held out to him, drew her aside and said, ‘Kate, why did you not tell me you were again in town? Cruel, to leave me in such uncertainty!’

  She took away her hand, looking at him with an expression of tender reproach that she knew stirred his passion unmercifully. But she only said, ‘We are here until the spring. There are to be certain celebrations for the appearance of this new Bible Sir Francis hath worked upon. It was that brought him his knighthood together with some of the rest of the multitude that laboured in the pious cause. It was my father brought Francis into it.’

  ‘But his Majesty offered no knighthood to your father?’

  She laughed.

  ‘I think he would be careful to avoid it if that could be done without offence,’ she said.

  ‘Ah Kate,’ he sighed. ‘Thou’rt too bright and lovely a bird to be shut up among dusty libraries.’

  ‘Would’st have me fly free, a prey to any hawk falling from the sky?’

  ‘There is one hawk would fall upon thee
, but not to kill, only to possess and adore.’

  She smiled her thanks to him very kindly for the elaborate conceit. She could never refuse flattery. When, a little later, she made excuses, proffered her thanks to Lady Essex and took her leave, she allowed young Alan Carr to go with her to find the coach that would take her home, the countess said, as it had brought her to Whitehall. This was a simple act of courtesy that caused no surprise or comment from any who met them on the way. Lady Leslie had long been accepted as a friend of the Carr brothers.

  But when her escort made to follow her into the coach she stopped him to ask, ‘Did my Lady Essex expect this of you? Does she not wait for your return?’

  ‘I think she doth not,’ he said with a significant smile. ‘I think both the lady and Robbie will be better pleased to find themselves alone.’

  ‘As you will,’ Katharine said, but determined not to ask him into the house in Gracious Street, for she had never yet allowed a meeting between her Court friends and her family.

  They drove away in silence until they were past Fleet Street into the City, when Alan again took her hand and said in a low voice, ‘Kate, willst for ever torment me? Thou knows how constant is my true love—’

  ‘And thou knows I have a husband,’ she answered in the same tone. ‘Moreover a kind, a faithful one, though he loves me no longer.’

  ‘And you love him not,’ Alan insisted. ‘You love him not!’

  ‘I think I have never truly known what love is,’ Katharine answered prudently, but with more truth than she would ever acknowledge.

  He went on pressing her to show him some feeling, some attachment to his desperate, unhappy self, as he put it, until they were past Cheapside and the Exchange and turning into Gracious Street itself. At this point Katharine began to show signs of anxiety that he fully understood.

  ‘I will not cause thee embarrassment by appearing with thee,’ he said. ‘I will stay here in the coach. But I must see thee again and soon or my days will be dark indeed.’