‘Harry?’ I beam. ‘He has mentioned before how often you correspond.’
‘Ah, well, we are great friends, Lord Henry and I,’ Montagu replies and again I notice the almost royal way in which he refers to us Cromwell children. ‘He is doing a fine job in Ireland, much as Lord Broghill did in Scotland. And with Henry in post, General Monck commanding our army in Scotland and me with the fleet in the Channel, we are well placed to repel all our enemies. You can be assured, Highness, that your father has the best of men guarding the edges of his realm.’
He is so charming and confident, a little of his optimism rubs off his polished gold buttons and onto me and, gazing at his fine profile as he attacks his piece of treacle tart, I wonder briefly whether Father’s Protectorate may endure after all.
From then on, General Blake is watched for daily on the south coast and when news comes a few days later that his ships have been sighted off Cornwall, all the officers of the court busy themselves with preparations for his welcome: a great feast and reception ceremony where Blake is to be given Parliament’s jewel is planned, and Mary and I hastily send our best gowns to be steamed. But Providence is a cruel mistress for sailors and, barely a matter of hours later, a tearful messenger arrives in the night with the news that brave General Blake, veteran of our war with the Dutch, hero of our campaigns against the Spanish, died aboard his ship within sight of Plymouth Sound.
It is a devastating blow for the whole country and I feel it particularly keenly, though I barely knew the man. I cannot help but see some portent in the sudden death of one of the Commonwealth’s greatest heroes. As if it is a bad omen for the Protectorate as a whole, sent to shake me free from the fleeting confidence I had felt dining with General Montagu. Besides, there is something so unfair, so wantonly cruel about Blake dying when he was almost home that I can think of little else for days. Thoughts of death send me to seek happiness, just as they did in the days after Sindercome’s plot, and I go in rash search of Robert. With our desperation to be together briefly overcoming our terror at being caught, we manage to hide ourselves among the orange trees in the palace privy gardens for long enough one night to lie together again. It is hot and humid in the darkness and with a cricket in the hedge, the scent of orange blossom on the breeze and the stars bright overhead, I can almost imagine I am drifting with the ghost of General Blake off the coast of Spain, the waves lapping against the hull of the ship as the desire swells through me.
Sir Oliver Flemyng, who as our Master of Ceremonies had taken charge of preparations for the celebrations of Blake’s return, is forced to transform his plans into a state funeral at Westminster Abbey instead and spends the next few weeks working on this with the admiralty commissioners. The timing is especially poignant for Father, as we all spend the day before the funeral marking the date he finds most stupendous and miraculous in all the year – the third of September – which saw two of his greatest victories in battle: alongside John Lambert against the royalists and their Scots allies at Dunbar in ’50 and, in the final battle of the wars, at Worcester in ’51. The day is celebrated with a repeat performance of the six-part verse anthem which Master Hingston composed for last year’s anniversary. His music, twinned with the words of the poet Payne Fisher, brings the court to its feet in applause when the six singers and six instrumentalists take their bows. And none is more moved than Father, who speaks repeatedly of God’s purpose for each of us as he prepares to bid his greatest sea-faring general farewell.
This mood of mournful self-reflection has a profound effect on me and I retreat early to my room that evening to contemplate the fate of my own soul. I think of lying with Robert among the orange trees in the moonlight, and of how I felt that God was there too, drifting on the night breeze. But conflicting thoughts crowd in upon each other. It was a sin, the Bible tells us this, and Father would never forgive me if he knew. A hasty note delivered from Robert plunges me into further despair: I went to see your father myself today but found him in a dark mood. He still refuses us. Oh my darling, I don’t know what else to do …
Mary, coming to find me later with a comb in her hand and her prayers for General Blake composed, finds me sitting in the window seat, tears trickling down my flushed face.
‘Dear heart.’ She crosses to me at once and pushes the hair out of my eyes, her own eyes wide with concern, the pale moonlight turning her dark hair silver. ‘Is it Robert?’ she prompts at last.
I nod wordlessly, knowing that now is the time to tell her all; I have slipped too far and am floundering without her help.
‘We have gone further than you know,’ I say quietly. ‘Beyond all turning back.’
‘You don’t mean …’
I sink my eyes into my nightgowned lap. ‘I couldn’t help myself, Mary, I love him too strongly. And this may be the only way to force Father’s hand.’
She gasps at that. ‘No! You cannot possibly tell him, nor Mother. It would change everything; they would never look at you the same way again.’
A fresh spring of tears blinds me. ‘I know, I know! But what choice have they given me? I cannot marry another man, it is impossible.’
Mary turns to look out of the window and her hand slips from mine. I try and read her face like a map through my tears and feel a sudden horror that she will not look at me the same way again either. Does she feel I have betrayed her by making the greatest leap of our lives without her? Not just before her but without her even knowing? Does she think I have crossed into womanhood and left her behind alone? Worst still, does she judge what I have done in the sight of God? For once, Mary’s thoughts are hidden from me and I feel a sadness even deeper than that which had engulfed me before.
‘Mary?’ I creep my hand onto her lap. ‘Please forgive me.’
‘It is not for me to forgive.’
‘It is. I care for no other’s forgiveness more than yours.’
She turns her face back to mine then and I see the question playing on her lips before she asks it.
‘What was it like?’ she whispers eventually, as if the curiosity itself is shaming to her.
‘Oh, darling!’ I seize both her hands then, such is my relief. ‘It was …’ How, how to possibly put it into words? ‘It was the only true thing I have ever done, the one great act of my life that has cast all others into oblivion; a true heaven.’
‘But a heaven without God.’
‘No! I felt him there with us. Indeed, I have never felt closer to Him than I did in those moments, and you know how I have sometimes struggled to see Him.’
It is Mary’s turn to cry and I watch a single tear swell in her eye and burst over the lid onto the pale cheek below. ‘But Frances, what of the dangers? What if …’
I watch her lips struggling to form the words.
‘What if you were to bear a child? That is unthinkable … What of Father? His position? All we have would be snatched from us in an instant.’
I have no answer to any of this, either for her or for myself. Somehow the prospect of a baby has never felt real to me, though I know it could not be more so to her. All I can do is clasp her hands more tightly. Mary slides from the seat and I grasp at her nightdress, bright in the moonlight.
‘Don’t leave me.’
‘I must, dearest, I must think. Hush now and get some sleep.’ And with silent steps Mary is gone from my room like a barn owl flitting noiselessly from a moonlit field into a dark thicket.
I do not know what to make of Mary’s words. What can she have to think about? She knows what I have done, what risks there are for me; knows too what I plan to do if Father will not move in his opposition to my marriage. What can she possibly do to help me? I find little sleep that night and, as a result, drift through the next day as if in a dream. At least we have come now to Hampton Court and so it is easier than it is at Whitehall to escape alone into the gardens and sink my turbulent thoughts into the cream pages of a book, even if I have to keep rereading the same page time and again. I cannot quibble with t
he subtitle of the newly translated French romance I am reading – Love’s Masterpiece – but I find little comfort in my new knowledge of the subject.
My tears and sleeplessness seem to have brought on a sore throat and so I am excused my singing lesson with Master Hingston and sent to my room early in the evening with a tray of hot lemon water and honeyed porridge. Leaving Mary with Mother in the withdrawing room, I cannot help the uneasy sense that they plan to talk about me as soon as I am gone; something I so often find myself doing with Mother or my other sisters when one has left a room. So, despite my coughing, I do not undress and keep from my bed, pacing around the edges of the carpets in my room, tracing the patterns of the woven borders with my toes. It is with an odd sense of foretelling therefore that I hear the tap on my door a little later and let Mary into my room.
‘Are you well enough to come with me to speak to Mother and Father, Frances?’
Nerves prickle my back like a hedgehog’s spines. ‘What for?’
‘I have been thinking about you and Robert and talking with Mother – don’t worry,’ Mary adds hastily, ‘I have not told her your secret, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I repeat in unthinking echo.
‘Listen, dearest, place your trust in me for the next few minutes. I have an idea.’
I have no choice but to do as she says and I let Mary lead me from the room. It is an odd sensation; not since I was very young have I let Mary treat me as an older sister would. We have been equals, partners, peers; a pair of playing cards, two sides of a coin. But something has shifted between us. It is almost as if my transgression with Robert has, far from advancing me into womanhood ahead of Mary, cast me as a vulnerable child in need of her protection. Or perhaps it is only in taking me into her care that Mary can reassert herself in both her own sight and mine. I, the youngest of my parents’ children, know all too well how it feels to be left behind and so I cannot begrudge Mary’s reaction.
We find Mother and Father in their private bedroom: a room much smaller and simpler than the state bedchamber in which Father gives audiences. There is a bed of course with bedside tables and a damask-covered couch and stools arranged around the fireplace, but few other objects. The main – in fact the only – striking feature is the set of exquisite tapestries hung around the walls, which seem to weave the whole room in a haze of reds and blues. Indeed the remarkable depth of perspective in the fabric – the Italianate towers just visible through receding colonnades, the ruined temple on the distant hill – draws the eye into the very walls themselves as if this room were but one chamber in an open, expanding villa. The tapestries depict the story of the lovers, the gods Venus and Mars and their discovery by Venus’s blacksmith husband Vulcan. Before anyone speaks, my eyes sweep over the sequence with familiarity, though I cannot help but see something new in the clandestine lovers’ embrace now that I have felt such a thing for myself.
Returning my gaze to the room, I see Mother sitting on the couch, her maid combing out her hair while Father emerges from the dressing room next door at the sound of our voices, drying his hands on a towel as he walks.
‘Girls?’
‘May we speak with you, Mother, Father?’ Mary says.
‘Of course, my dears.’ Mother takes the comb and nods to her lady-in-waiting to leave her and Father calls after her retreating back: ‘You can tell Anthony I will not need him again tonight.’
‘Certainly, Your Highness, thank you.’ The lady backs out of the door with a bow and we are alone again; a normal family once more. I hear the sigh escape from each of us as we breathe easily again.
Mother holds out her hands to us and we go to her, sinking our wide skirts awkwardly onto the narrow chairs facing her. Father dries his face and lays down the towel before wandering across to join us, dropping heavily onto the couch beside Mother with a creaking of joints. He massages his right thigh before putting his stockinged feet up on a stool and crossing his ankles. Mother still has the comb in her hand and she gestures to me with it: ‘Shall I comb your hair, Fanny, as I used to do?’
In that moment I can think of nothing nicer and so I go and sit on the floor in front of her skirts, my back to her and Father, my eyes on Mary. Mother begins to pull the pins from my hair, one by one, her ringed hands soft on my neck. Instantly I am returned to our house in Ely where she would do this for me by the parlour fire after supper while Bridget read to us from the psalms and my brothers banged in and out of the room. We lived on top of one another then in just a few rooms, with no fine attendants and ladies-in-waiting, just a girl to help in the kitchen, a spotty apprentice in Father’s tax office and an old groom from the town. The sharp tang of polished leather from Father’s boots kicked off on the floor beside me brings me back from my memory, and I hear his heavy breathing behind me; he is not the young man he once was.
‘Father, we wish to speak to you about Frances and Robert Rich.’
Mary speaks softly but with assured purpose. I, however, feel no such calm and my pulse thunders in my wrists as I knot my hands together in my lap like a penitent. I have no idea what Mary will say but I decide in that moment that I will not leave this room without Father’s permission for my marriage, even if that means I must reveal our carnal acts and debase myself for ever in his sight. I feel curiously light-headed at the resolution, almost excited by my bravery, the images of Venus and Mars caught in the moment of their illicit lust swirling around my vision. A small sigh escapes behind me, although I am too distracted to notice if it comes from Father or Mother; I know how vexed they have both been over this match these last months. I watch Mary prepare her next words, summoning them as if from deep within her body; she, among us, is most conscious of Father’s health and happiness and always shies away from causing him distress.
‘Father, I will say what Frances will not. She and Robert have a deep and abiding love and I must tell you that she will never be happy if they are not allowed to wed. I know you have objected to his character but I can assure you that, from what I have seen of him, he is far steadier and more constant than you assume. He comes from a noble house, one which has become closely aligned to ours, and you know how deeply his family desires this match.’
I feel Father get to his feet behind me and hear his steps as he strides back and forth behind the couch.
Mother speaks next, though she does not pause in her attentions to my hair. ‘What Mary says is true, my dear; it is not so unsuitable a match.’
But still Father does not concede. ‘I understand all of what you say, my dears, but after what I have heard of his dissolute behaviour, how can I be assured this young man will prove a worthy husband for Frances? How can I be sure of his nearness to God?’
Mary looks at me and I know the time has come for me to reveal my trump card. It will be easier at least with my back turned to my parents. I open my mouth to speak but hear Mary’s voice instead.
‘Father, I implore you. I love my sister beyond anything else and so I tell you now that if you will let her marry the man she loves, I will gladly accept any husband you choose for me. Any at all; whoever will be most advantageous to you.’
I stare at her in disbelief. Behind me, Mother’s hands pause over my hair as Father’s pacing stops abruptly.
‘Mary!’ I can find no other words.
Mary holds our gazes firmly, the low light of the fire flickering on the pearls at her neck.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ are the only words Mother manages and we three wait then, knowing that it is only Father’s words that actually matter.
‘Daughter.’ Father moves around the couch to Mary and lifts a hand from her lap. ‘Dear child.’ He kisses her slight hand and clasps it to his chest in both of his large ones. ‘You move me by your gesture Mall, by the strength of your love. And you, Fanny,’ he turns his broad face back to me, ‘you move me by the force of your love for young Rich; by your constancy. If I have harboured doubts about his steadfastness, I can have none about yours.’ Father shakes his head th
en, his tired face carved in shadows in the firelight. ‘I grant your wish, my dears. How can I deny you all now?’
Tears stream down my face and I clamber forward, not to Father but to Mary whom I clasp from the floor, laying my head in her lap in thanks. Turning my blurred eyes sideways onto Father, I reach one hand up to him and he grasps it so that the three of us are linked together as one for a moment. But it is for a moment only as Father, squeezing my hand in ending to our discussion, retreats to his dressing room and disappears from sight. Watching him go, I swivel my gaze onto Mother who is beaming at us, tears in her eyes and the comb still poised in mid-air.
When, later, I can find the words, I pour my love and thanks and my outrage on Mary in a whirlpool of emotions. ‘You shouldn’t have done it for me, Mary … I would never have let you if I’d known what you intended. But I am so glad you did, I am so happy! But what of your happiness? What if Father makes you marry the widowed royalist viscount or the notorious Duke of Buckingham?’
Mary says little in response, though I can see from her shining eyes that she is sharing in my joy just as I am sharing in her sacrifice. ‘I ask only one thing of you in return, Frances,’ she says seriously when we have calmed ourselves. ‘That you do not lie with Robert again until you are married. You owe it to me to be careful now that you will have what you want.’
‘Of course, my dearest, anything you ask of me is yours.’ I gaze at her in wonder before dissolving into giggles. ‘Though I hope that Father lets us marry quickly!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Robert sweeps me into his arms at the news, even though we are just outside the chapel, in full view of half the court. But it is Mary to whom he directs his joy, falling to one knee before her and kissing her hand in gratitude. He offers an arm to each of us then and guides us out of the palace into the deer park for a long walk among the first fallen leaves golden against the grass, our arms linked and heads bent together in collusion. Later he goes with his grandfather to see Father and then meets with Secretary Thurloe and two members of the Privy Council to set the dowry and agree a tentative date for November.
The Puritan Princess Page 20