Watch the Lady (14 page)

It was only as she felt her way, one hand on the wall, along the dark gallery that led to the music room, and saw a sliver of light beneath the door that the reality of what she was about to do overcame her. She stopped, as if turned to stone, and the ugly word dropped into her head like a toad into a pond:
adulteress
. Remembering the bewilderment of her wedding night, how bereft of tenderness it had been, she began to question whether she truly wanted such an experience with Sidney. But another part of her was pulling her inexorably towards such an event. Surely, that part of her reasoned, the fact of love would render it different, making her aware of a fizzing sensation at her root.

As her thoughts began to do battle, the man waiting behind that door became ever more strange and distant. He was either the site of sin that would cast her soul into an infinite wilderness or something else, perhaps even more disturbing: a pleasure she would never be able to give up.

She stumbled against an object in the gloom, a chair that fell to the floor with a crash, and turned tail, running away back from where she came, a pulse drumming loud in her ears. She heard the door behind her open and felt a surge of fear, as if it was a monster coming for her.

“Come back,” he called, his voice pregnant with dismay. “Stella, my love, come back.”

She sped down the long gallery and up the stairs, stopping only when she was safely in her bedchamber. Leaning back against the closed door, she tried to catch her breath and the thing where her heart should have been was protesting so loudly she feared it would jump right out of her.

“What's the matter?” It was Jeanne's sleep-dulled voice coming from the truckle.

“I took fright, that is all,” she replied, going to perch on the edge of the little bed, feeling the comfort of Jeanne's steady arms folding about her.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“The puppy needed to go out,” Penelope said, wondering at how easily the lie had formed, thinking of all the other lies she would have to tell if she allowed herself to be drawn into that looming temptation, and each one of them a further sin.

“You'll catch your death wandering about on a December night like that.” Jeanne pulled her down into the warmth of the blankets, still holding her, the puppy snuggled in, and she must have fallen asleep for she woke in the morning squeezed up in the truckle, wondering for a moment how she came to be there.

Sidney disappeared from court after that, but not from Penelope's thoughts, where he circulated like a dirge that had become trapped in her head, and not from the gossip, which was filled with speculation upon his whereabouts. “He is at his sister's at Wilton”; “He has gone to Ireland to fight with his father”; “He has gone to the Low Countries.” She didn't dare join in the discussions for fear that a slip of the tongue might reveal her black secret, and her thoughts pondered constantly on the way love could distort a person beyond all recognition.

As she waited by the spitting fire for Rich to finish his prayers she wondered what it was he felt he must pray for so vehemently, what sins he harbored that needed forgiving. She thought of Sidney's poem, carefully folded and cached away in her casket of sentimental treasures, asking herself what kind of sin
she
was guilty of in regards to
that
. You can sin in thought as much as in deed; the countess had said it often enough. Penelope had never given it much analysis, for if you think about pilfering a few plums from the kitchens or consider telling a little inconsequential lie, then the sin is hardly worth the bother of worry. But this was different. She couldn't help wondering if
thinking
about adultery was as wicked as the deed itself, because she
had
thought of it—many times. The state of her soul frightened her, she imagined it shriveled and dry; it seemed impossible to live a life free of sin.

She heard Rich's footsteps on the stairs. They were precise, as if carefully measured out. A knot of trepidation tied itself in her belly. He entered, lit ghoulishly from the candle he carried; she turned to look at him; he touched her lightly on the shoulder. “You are still up.” The kindness in his voice was unexpected, confusing her for a moment, allowing her to feel a fragment of hope. “I need your help, Penelope.”

“My help?” She could not imagine, for the life of her, in what way she might help him.

“We have to do this thing.” His voice was heavy with something akin to dread, as if he had been threatened with the thumbscrews.

She nodded, not really understanding what he meant.

“It
must
be done. Perhaps you would . . .” He stopped and looked about the chamber, seeming unable to meet her gaze. “Could I ask you to wear these?”

She hadn't noticed until then that he was carrying a carefully folded pile of clothes, which he placed on her lap.

“Is it a gift?”

“In a manner of speaking . . . It is more a gift I wish you would give to me.”

She took the item on top. It was a black velvet cap, in the plain style of the hoods that students liked to wear to make them appear more serious, and was lined in black cony fur, which elevated it from something ordinary into a thing of discreet luxury. Beneath it was a doublet of black damask, soft as a peach to the touch, beautifully tailored and backed with fine, inky quilted silk. She took each item, unfolding it, spreading it over her knees: a pair of hose to match the doublet; silk stockings, as delicate as those worn by the Queen; a shirt of white, gauzy linen; a starched ruff, its modest diameter belying its acres of starched fabric. None of those garments appeared to have ever been worn.

“These are a boy's clothes,” she said, supposing there had been some mistake. “They are too small for you.”

He said nothing, just put his arms up, a gesture a nurse makes when undressing a small child. Penelope mimicked him, without questioning, and he slipped her nightdress over her head, replacing it swiftly with the fine linen shirt. Then he handed her the silk stockings, which she rolled up her legs.

“A masquerade,” she said, thinking of carnival, when everything is upside down and sometimes, though she had never seen such a thing herself, loose women go about for the day dressed as men, with woolen mustaches and wadded codpieces. She wanted to ask him what he meant by this but didn't know how to form her question, realizing how very little she knew her husband, feeling all of a sudden lost in this unfamiliar house with this strange man, wishing she could call for Jeanne in the adjoining room. She thought then of what she had promised—to be obedient, chaste, to honor her husband.
Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder
. She allowed herself to be helped into the hose and then the doublet, which he laced all the way up, before attaching the small, stiff ruff about its collar. He then plucked her coif from her head and smoothed her hair back into its ties, fitting the velvet cap on, its silken fur caressing her ears.

“Stand and let me look at you,” he said gently. She did as he asked and he handed her a New Testament, which was marked at a page. She opened it, finding Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

“Please would you recite the passage I have indicated?” The smallest of smiles appeared on his lips fleetingly and he placed a candle into the sconce beside her so she could see to read.

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?
He reached out, touching the edge of the doublet, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, seeming entirely absorbed in the fabric, as if it held the secrets of the heavens.
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wantons, nor buggerers, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.
He seemed to have fallen into a trance, his eyes at half-mast, mouth slightly open.
And such were some of you. But ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

He took the book from her, wordlessly, closing it, placing it to one side, leading her to the bed and taking her shoulders, turning her away from him, pushing her forward until her face was pressed into the plummet and she was immersed in the dusty scent of plucked feathers.

•  •  •

Afterwards, when he had gone, she removed the clothes, stowing them under the bed guiltily, as if they might tell of her shame. She had noticed the blood on the fine linen shirt, a dark circle against the white, wondering how it was she could have been so blind as to not realize that her marriage had been unconsummated for months, inwardly cursing the countess for keeping her so strictly. Had she been at court from a younger age, with those maids of the chamber seasoned to romance, she might have been less naive. She had thought they told stories when they talked of the pain, the member swelling to several times its right size and becoming hard as a stick, and the emissions, but they had been telling the truth.

The recent memory of Rich's urgent pounding brought bile to her throat and the animal groan, loud and sudden and ecstatic, making her realize that his moans on the previous occasions had been the sounds of frustration. And if she didn't know it already by then, the hot wet trickle between her legs hammered home the fact that her marriage was sealed. Only then did the realization skewer itself into her that had she known she was still a virgin, even after her vows were said, she might have found a way to escape her ties. She could have announced that Rich was incapable and the marriage might have been annulled. She tortured herself with what might have been, until a knock at the door distracted her.

“It is Jeanne; can I come in?”

“Of course.”

Jeanne slipped under the covers beside her. “I heard Rich going to his chamber and thought you might like the company.”

“Thank heavens for you, Jeanne.” Penelope found she couldn't explain the ritual of the boy's clothes; the shameful episode defied description, but she did confide the belated consummation, glad to share her woes.

“Well, it is done now,” Jeanne said. “For better or worse.”

For all eternity, thought Penelope. “Let us hope he has planted an infant in me.”

“If only I had realized,” said Jeanne.

“How could you have possibly known?”

“Even so . . .”

“Rich asked that I read to him”—Penelope paused, unsure about sharing such a fact, saying it quickly before she changed her mind—“from St. Paul to the Corinthians.”

“What, during?”

She nodded.

“Do you think that is a Puritan habit?”

Penelope began to consider the strangeness of it all and the depth of her own ignorance, wondering if the evangelical countess had deliberately kept her in such a state in order to make her more pliable in the marriage bed.

•  •  •

She woke early to find Jeanne already up, calling for someone to come and stoke the fire. Through the fug of sleep she remembered the boy's clothes hastily shoved beneath the bed, imagining them being discovered, her thoughts racing. What would she say? That they were Rich's weeds? But they were too small by far. She would never be believed. And how would she explain away the bloodstain? She quietly gathered the offending items together when Jeanne's back was turned, screwing them into a ball and tugging a sheet from the bed to wrap them in.

“What are you doing?” asked Jeanne.

“I suppose I ought to do something with this.” She held up a corner of the sheet. “Blood.”

Jeanne made a grimace. “I'll deal with it.”

“No, let me.”

Penelope was afraid her insistence would arouse suspicion but Jeanne didn't seem to think anything of it. “It is for me to do such things, but if you insist.”

Penelope tucked the incriminating bundle under an arm and made her way to her husband's rooms in the far wing of the house, unsure of the way, having to stop one of the pages to ask for directions. His door was vast and hewn from a single piece of oak. She didn't think to knock; it was morning and the household was up and about, though if she'd thought about it, she'd have noticed it was still quiet as a morgue outside Rich's rooms.

She lifted the latch and the door swung open silently. The hangings were drawn tight about the bed. She had planned to leave the bundle beside him so when he woke he would see them before anything else, and tiptoed across the chamber, aware of a loud rhythmic snore. She peeped round the edge of the bed-curtains. It was dark within so she stood silently a moment for her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom and began to realize that what she had thought was snoring was more like some kind of panting sound. She thought that one of the dogs had become overheated in the airless space. Pulling back the curtain farther a square of light fell over a face, not her husband's face, a face she had never seen before. It belonged to a startled boy, a naked boy, who was supine beside her naked husband, whose face was buried, eyes tightly scrunched, in the pillow.

Penelope stood stock-still, her eyes locked onto the stranger's.

“Don't stop,” Rich was moaning. “For God's sake, don't stop.” His hand moved round, finding the boy's mouth, slipping two fingers into it. But the boy twisted away and Rich seemed only then to understand that something was wrong, heaving himself up, seeing Penelope, who was standing immobile like that wife in the Bible turned to salt.

“Get out!” he shouted. “Get out of here you . . . you . . .
bitch
!”

His words sprang her from her paralysis. She spun round and ran from the room, through the winding passages, turning here and there in the maze of corridors until she was completely lost. Eventually, she happened upon a small staircase, descending it round and round, clinging onto the rope handle for fear of falling. At the bottom in complete darkness she could feel the outline of a locked door and banged desperately at the wood until her hands hurt.