The Dark and the Light

by Josephine Bell

  Sir Gervase went to the sick man’s room, finding him still very ill, weak, shivering, complaining of numbness in his hands and feet. Once more, in pity, the Lieutenant advised him to take only simple food, to decline all presents from whatever source. To send for a reputable physician or at least for an apothecary.

  This advice, kindly meant, unwisely spoken, brought on the end the young man’s enemies had looked for throughout the whole summer of that year. For Overbury could remember only two names that might serve. One was the apothecary James Franklin, the other a second apothecary, William de Lombell. He had both those names from Robbie Carr, spoken casually from time to time in connection with various small ailments for which his friend felt he had no need of a physician. He did not know, it had never occurred to him, that both these apothecaries had been brought to Robbie’s notice by Lady Frances, who had used them through the recommendation of Mistress Anne Turner.

  So the trap was sprung at last, with rather more cunning and certainly with more care and skill than any of the earlier attempts. Sir Thomas Overbury, of his own accord and insistence, demanded treatment from Master William de Lombell. The apothecary sent to him, quite openly, a prepared clyster in the hands of his apprentice, William Reeve. There was no reason why he should not be admitted with his medical remedy, which Overbury had asked for. The young man administered the clyster and went away. This was in the early afternoon of September the fourteenth.

  Towards midnight of that day, Sir Thomas was seized with severe abdominal pains and with a recurrence of all his previous symptoms in an aggravated form. His cries of agony brought Weston to him, who suspected what had happened, but was determined to do nothing that might either incriminate himself or set him wrong with his true employer. He bustled about with soothing warm drinks and hot bricks wrapped in flannel, which made no difference whatever to the sick man’s condition.

  In the morning, when Overbury became quieter from sheer exhaustion, shock and progressive poisoning, Weston sent to Sir Gervase Helwys to come urgently to the prisoner. The Lieutenant found him very weak, barely conscious, clearly dying. He brought in a physician, who did nothing but confirm this opinion, and afterwards a clergyman who was not able to make any contact with the sufferer, now in a deep coma.

  About seven in the evening of the fifteenth day of September Sir Thomas Overbury died. At ten o’clock, in darkness, young William Reeve, with a bundle of all his possessions and twenty pounds in gold, was rowed out to a ship lying in the Pool of London and bound for Holland.

  Ten days later the King’s Commission found the case against the Earl of Essex proved. Lady Frances Howard had achieved her divorce. No evidence of her adultery had come forward, though, as some said, her suspected intrigue with Lord Rochester could not be called adultery if she had never had true intercourse with her husband. At any rate nothing was said before the Commission, the one voice that might have been raised convincingly being stilled for ever only ten days before the verdict was given.

  The lesser scandal hid the greater crime. Besides, the physician who attended Overbury’s last hours gave his diagnosis as recurrent inflammation of the bowel with terminal shock and collapse. A fair account of the symptoms, amounting to what was known as a definite disease, but one that did not suggest the cause of the inflammation. It was the cause that exercised the minds of those who had to dispose of the body, seek and find relatives, wind up the dead man’s affairs, realize his very small fortune and pay his debts.

  But they came out of it with no enlightenment, only a wish, left unstated, to have nothing further to do with the business. And so the matter rested.

  Sir Thomas Overbury being dead, his special keeper, appointed through Sir Thomas Monson, returned to his former employment, his wages paid up, an extra ten pounds in his pocket. Mistress Turner received him privately the next day.

  ‘You were not present at this man’s death?’ she asked.

  Weston looked at her, admiring her calm indifference, though fearing the strength of evil that sustained it.

  ‘I was not, mistress, I was called at the onset of the illness by the man’s cries and groans, his recurrence of that disorder he suffered from time to time all through his sojourn in that unhealthy prison.’

  ‘’Tis well for you, Richard, you were so little in it,’ she answered. ‘But was it not you that took the young man, William Reeve, to Sir Thomas’s room and provided him with the hot water and basin he needed?’

  ‘Nay. That too I avoided. I directed him where he might fill his jug with hot water and where he might set his basin and syringe. I did not wait to see him administer the enema. The knight had asked for it when he consulted Master de Lombell as he was entitled to do for his health. There be many at the Tower that speak very well of this apothecary.’

  Mistress Turner sent him away upon an errand that took him out of London for a week. By the end of that time, she thought, he would have grown tired of recounting the death of Overbury. Away from the City and the Court his hearers would be so little conversant with the ways of high society they would not be able to conclude anything sinister from the story.

  But in London, in the City especially, rumours spread, very quietly, very discreetly, put about by the many folk of lesser rank and station at the Tower and on the river beside it, who had hinted for some weeks that all was not well with Sir Thomas Overbury. These whisperers could not be called witnesses and would never be called upon to act as such, but the ideas they spread took root like blown seed upon the wind, in minds accustomed to evil and expecting it.

  The hinting came to Master Angus Leslie, who took advantage of the fine September sunshine to ride down to Oxford to visit his kinsman’s new house which he had not yet seen.

  Francis welcomed him with pleasure. Katharine, in very good health from her summer in the country, found the alderman’s visit stimulating, but was much disquieted by the news of the death of Overbury.

  ‘You knew him, I believe, Kate,’ he said to her with a sidelong glance at Francis who was watching his wife.

  Katharine was on her guard at once, fully understanding the old man’s intention.

  ‘I think I may have been brought to his attention once, sir, when I was attending upon my Lady Essex. I cannot remember ought save his general courtesy to her ladyship and to me.’

  ‘Yet he offended the King, they say, by his lack of courtesy and hath suffered for it.’

  ‘He cools his rash obstinacy in the Tower at present,’ she said, with assured casualness.

  ‘He cools it, madam, forever in the grave,’ Master Angus told her.

  Francis saw the sudden flash of frightened understanding, the flush of anger dying into pallor. He had not told her already of Overbury’s death because he had not wanted her to think of Rochester or Essex or the obscene discussions reported from the divorce commission. Now she would blame him for this crude exposure more than Master Leslie.

  But he was wrong. In the face of real danger Katharine was capable of very real courage and a quick wit.

  ‘I had not heard it,’ she said, indifferently. ‘He was ever an unfortunate young man, I was told. My Lord Rochester will be grieved.’

  With that she rose and left them and they were silent until Alderman Leslie said, ‘Aye, Robbie will be grieved, but my Lady Frances Howard will not Come. Francis, take me to thy children. I have not escaped the dark turmoil that afflicts the City of London, spilling over from Whitehall like some foul disease, merely to steep thee and thy good wife in it. Take me to thy bairns and give us some light to cheer us in their young pranks and tumbles.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  So pleased was Alderman Leslie with Francis’s new house, the progress of his two children and the improvement shown at all times in Katharine’s behaviour, that he invited the couple to go back with him to London for a week’s entertainment in the capital before the next term at Oxford was due to begin.

  Katharine had worked hard for this result which gave her instant and lastin
g satisfaction. She had sought desperately through the summer for an excuse to visit London, either to see her parents or to fulfil some vague promise to one or other of her noble friends about the Court. But on every occasion when she raised the matter with Francis he had an answer that destroyed her argument and her wishes.

  ‘I know well you miss your mother’s encouragement,’ he told her. ‘I am sorry for that, though I acknowledge your concern for her health. She ages, but not so noticeably as doth your father. He works himself too hard, poor old man, being driven beyond his physical powers by an ever young spirit of inquiry and an undying thirst for the new ideas that pour over our field of learning in such a magnificent plenty.’

  ‘You are eloquent,’ she answered coldly, having little interest in plenty, whether of learning or of new ideas. ‘I only know that I miss those pleasures of easy talk I had in my home.’

  ‘Gossip, I think you mean.’

  ‘News rather, of matters of state and their impact upon my chosen friends.’

  She laid some emphasis on the word chosen, which made Francis sigh. His friends were not her friends, nor hers his. Nor was her mother any more a true companion for Doctor Ogilvy, whose excessive labours could be put down to his need to occupy himself, as well as his thoughts, away from home.

  But since no word came to Katharine from any one of those she claimed as friends at Court, he was not unduly plagued by her longings and complaints. And now Master Angus Leslie would have them return to London with him. Well, he would indulge her at last. She should have her dear wish for gossip, her visits to the great ones he secretly despised, her sight of the King, emblem to her of Godhead in spite of his many very obvious deficiences in that rôle.

  This sour frame of mind persisted in Francis until he arrived in Gracious Street to find himself and Katharine housed again in the rooms they had occupied when they were first married. This softened him, though it did nothing to promote his happiness. However, the alderman, who had brought the young people home with him in order to give both of them a much-needed relief from one another, had provided plenty of occasions even for the few days of their stay. Chiefly to bring Francis again up to date with the progress of the new sciences, through Edmund Bacon and William Harvey. He had even secured the great Sir Francis Bacon, as he called him, to attend a dinner in person at which he might present Francis to him as one of the younger, more progressive tutors at Oxford.

  Meanwhile Katharine went to Paternoster Row to see her parents and enjoy the relaxation of several hours with her mother. She took the opportunity, while there, of writing and despatching a brief letter to Alan Carr to tell him of her presence in town and to request an immediate answer.

  The answer came with the young man in person, handsomer than ever, though perhaps a shade less ardent. How ever, he brought a message from his brother bidding her to a gathering upon the following day. This he gave her as they sat together in the little arbour in the garden of Doctor Ogilvy’s house.

  ‘But see thou make no allusion to my Lady Frances’s divorce. No congratulation upon its success. No reference at all.’

  ‘Is she not pleased then?’

  ‘Indeed, she is pleased. But she would have all forget it as soon as may be. She hath given up her title as Countess of Essex, though as often as not, since some folk used her maiden name always, she went by this. So now she is Lady Frances Howard only, until she be wed to Robbie.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘By the end of the year, they hope. But speak not of this, either.’

  Katharine laughed gaily, too gaily for Alan, who winced at the sound. He was not altogether pleased by the verdict of the Commission. He was unrelievably afraid since the death of Overbury. So he resented the apparent levity with which Kate regarded the present situation of them all.

  ‘I think it is no matter for jest,’ he said. ‘But I suppose in Oxford this is how it is regarded.’

  Katharine felt the snub acutely, but had no ready answer. Instead, she allowed her eyes to fill with slow tears, turning them upon Alan in the kind of gentle reproach she had always found successful.

  It was so now. By the end of his visit Alan was hers again absolutely. After her meeting with Lord Rochester and Lady Frances the next evening she was again Alan’s mistress, his dream of happiness. His only love, he swore, with much feeling and little sincerity.

  In Gracious Street Katharine made no secret of her visit to her noble friends, concluding wisely that Francis was sure to hear of it whether she spoke or not. She said as much when she finished her account of the two days she had been with her parents.

  ‘For gossip is as rife in this house as at the Court,’ she said, smiling. ‘Which I am sure you must have noticed, my love. Wherever my Lady Bacon goes there goes black scandal. I marvel Mistress Butters is so complaisant.’

  Francis flushed at this, but could not altogether deny it. He guessed there was malice in Katharine’s remarks, aimed more at Lucy than at the girl’s mother.

  But on the occasion of the dinner for Sir Francis Bacon, at which the four women had appeared at table and retreated directly afterwards, he had overheard the great man’s young wife say, in a very waspish tone to Lucy and loud enough for Katharine to hear, ‘The Lady Frances Howard displays a most unusual modesty of late, even now that she be a free woman again. She scarce entertains her friends, goes not to the play, doth not walk abroad. It is said by some she shares the grief of my Lord Rochester for his friend’s death, but by others that she is in mortal fear for it, as being unlooked for and of such a rapid nature.’

  He remembered these words now, though he had paid little attention at the time. Then he had been so fascinated by the Solicitor-General’s discourse on the Law and later on a wide variety of topics, that he entirely forgot Lady Bacon’s near standing. But now it came back to him.

  ‘Lady Bacon is unwise,’ he answered Katharine, gravely. ‘She lacks tact, she is sometimes coarse, often unkind. But the colour of the times is dark and darkest in that City of Westminster at Whitehall Palace. Foreigners deplore it, confusing it with the capital of the land, but excuse us, for half Europe still considers us to be barbarians. Chiefly for hearing the tales put abroad by the many Lady Bacons of the Court, for I believe she is by no means alone in her distasteful exaggerations.’

  Katharine shrugged and tried to bring the strictures back to Mistress Butters and her daughter for listening to the gossip—probably, nay certainly, passing it on to others.

  But Francis was tired of it. He had been that day, before Katharine came back from Paternoster Row, to visit Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital where Doctor Harvey worked, attending to the sick. And also where he had his laboratory in which he did research into the structure and functioning of animals. He had shown Francis the anatomy of a frog with the heart and lungs and gut laid open, exposed in their natural relation. Also the tiny heart itself, opened to show its three chambers and their connecting valves.

  ‘A simplified version of our own,’ Doctor Harvey explained, ‘since we have four parts to ours. The frog is not as we are, warm-blooded and producing our young alive, fully-formed. It is cold-blooded and lays eggs in water as no doubt you know.’

  Francis nodded, but also admired the prepared exhibits of tadpoles, young, older with legs, and later having discarded the tail.

  ‘I have observed also the movement of the blood in these animals,’ Doctor Harvey told him. ‘How it flows into and out of the heart. There is a difference in the various vessels that carry blood. Veins and arteries. We call them by these names, often confusing them. I aim to resolve this confusion but have not yet done so. However, the work goes on, as you see.’

  Remembering this visit and the restrained ardour of the naturalist he felt a sudden weariness with the whole subject of Lady Bacon and her talk.

  ‘Mistress Butters and Lucy have known Alice Bacon for many years,’ he said tartly. ‘That she hath been spoiled by her elevation, so young and inexperienced, into the world of
Government is fairly evident, but is no matter for us. I am sorry she cares so little for her husband’s genius, the expression of it in his wonderful essays, his inspiration to scientists—’

  He checked himself. Kate was not listening. Besides, Doctor Harvey had again told him that Sir Francis Bacon’s views on the right progress of thought, of knowledge, of the pursuit of truth, were too vague. Science went its own humble way, as he had found in his student time at Padua, with detailed projects faithfully carried out. Witness his present interest in the blood vessels of the lowly frog, with its small beating three-chambered heart, its purple-coloured veins, its scarlet arteries, whose course and purpose he was slowly, patiently, mapping and describing.

  No, Kate was not listening. Why should she? His interests had never been hers. Nor, he suspected, as the poison of her talk about Lady Bacon sank into his heart and soul, had those of Lucy Butters been his. She listened to Court gossip, not indeed wishing to take part in the activities of the Court, as Kate did and had partly achieved, but because she was a woman and was entertained by gossip. Well, let them have entertainment, if that would content them. He had forgotten in this fresh disillusionment that when he and Alec Nimmo first came to London they had delighted in the entertainment of plays, particularly when Master Shakespeare wrote them.

  So, remembering this at last in the remaining days of their visit, Francis and his wife paid two visits to the theatre, first to Ben Jonson’s ‘Alchemist’ which made them laugh, at times uneasily, secondly to Webster’s ‘Vittoria Colombona’ or ‘The White Devil’, a wild dark tragedy much in vogue. Katharine found it both terrifying and fascinating. The evil passion, the jealousy and treachery, the violence, the poisoned deaths, the final holocaust, all this she found almost unbearably exciting. It was well done, the audience very appreciative.

  Francis found it, as a play, written with the feeling of the times, where uncertainty bred fear and the unbridled licence of the Court darkened the spirits of all those outside its range of activity. He admired the writing, deplored the content, deplored especially the partial neglect of Will Shakespeare, whose later works, appearing infrequently now, did nothing to revive interest in the wonderful plays of his early manhood.