Watch the Lady (16 page)

The carriage pulled to a halt as the brothers cantered back towards them, dismounting on the run, in a clatter of hooves, bridles chinking, horses puffing. Penelope jumped out to greet Essex, who flung himself into her arms like a lover. He had filled out, felt like a man beneath her touch, not the boy he used to be, and he had grown so she had to stretch up on the tips of her toes to reach him, but his skin was still smooth as a peach, though she could see a scattering of bristles on his chin where he must have begun to shave. She had a sense, in that moment, of time passing too swiftly—Essex nearly seventeen already, she nineteen and with child, even little Wat was twelve—wishing she could turn back the pages of their lives, flicking past those years of separation and back to the chapter when they used to play together in the ruined turret.

“Ride to the house with us,” said Essex.

“I shouldn't—” she began, but on seeing the rejection in his face she whispered. “I am with child.” Instead of the jubilant smile she expected, he looked inexplicably devastated and refused to meet her eyes—perhaps he too was musing on the passing of time.

“Be happy for me,” she said.

“I am.” But his scrunched brow told another story, which made Penelope wonder if the unfathomable gloom that sometimes plagued him had returned.

He greeted their mother with, at last, a glimpse of the smile that dimpled his right cheek so charmingly, before climbing back up onto Dancer and heading off, calling to Wat to catch him up.

“He seems perturbed,” Penelope said, once back inside the coach beside Lettice.

“He has been melancholic of late. I am counting on you to pull him out of it.” But Penelope knew well enough that there was little she could do to alleviate his black moods.

The carriage began to trundle on once more, shuddering over stones and potholes, and Penelope couldn't shake off the sense of her lost past. The intense awareness of time passing was causing a buzz of panic at the core of her, as if she were speeding towards her own end faster than she could bear. Even the thought of the baby taking shape inside her, that minuscule seed sprouting in the dark, offered little comfort, serving only to remind her that the best of her had been given to a man who couldn't muster a scrap of love to throw her way.

By the time they had passed the old castle gates and drawn up by the doors she had been shaken to the bones. The servants, presumably alerted by her brothers, had formed a line of greeting, but as she was helped out of the carriage she realized that she barely recognized a soul amongst them, another stark reminder of the flight of time. Even the house had changed; it seemed smaller, the vast double doors to the great hall rendered modest, the hall itself diminished, and, when she looked closely, a little dilapidated, though perhaps, she reasoned, that was because she had become more used to the cavernous royal palaces and Leighs, where everything was so very sumptuous and carefully tended.

Penelope crossed the room to look at the old portrait of her father, seeing it as if for the first time. He, clad in his inky armor with its intricately gilded panels and crimson velvet edging, looked out of the picture directly at her as if the past had come back to life. He had a smile hidden beneath his mustache, reminding her of how he used to be, his stern front always compromised by an irrepressible sense of joy, and she had a sudden memory—surprised at the way the past could strike from nowhere—of his being fitted for this very same suit and how he had put the helmet on over her head and played peek-a-boo with the visor.

Her father's image inevitably turned Penelope's thoughts to his wish for her, making her wonder what he would have thought of the man she'd ended up with, whether he would even have allowed such a match. Her mind conjured an image of Sidney begging for her hand, on his knees before the Queen, and she felt the now familiar hatred well up for that woman. Her father had always thought chivalry more important than wealth and Sidney was the epitome of chivalry.

Sidney had returned to court in the spring, wringing out her heart with his presence. She had done all she could to avoid him, taking strength from her victory over her husband, focused on keeping abreast of the labyrinthine allegiances in the privy chamber; on keeping one eye on Burghley and Cecil; on keeping informed of any plots afoot; amassing information to pass on to her mother. But Sidney's presence was almost too much to bear.

She had feigned sleep late one evening in a corner of the privy chamber, making as if she had drifted off but in fact watching an exchange between Cecil and a young man she didn't recognize. She remembered wondering what it must be like to be born with a body that was so misshapen, feeling sympathy for Cecil, but there was something about him that unsettled her nonetheless. She watched, through half-shut eyes, a purse pass from Cecil to the other man, absorbed by the surreptitious nature of the action and the way Cecil looked about shiftily. But she must have truly dropped into sleep at some point, for she had woken, disorientated, to find Sidney gazing at her as if she were a constellation of stars and he an astronomer. As she woke properly, realizing that the room had cleared and she was alone with him, she felt her long-suppressed desire ignite, but with it came the sense that she had been violated by his secret scrutiny, as if her pockets had been gone through without her permission.

She must have appeared horrified for he said, “Forgive me, Stella. I couldn't help myself,” and was full to drooping with shame, as though he had done something truly wicked.

She wanted to ask what it was exactly he asked forgiveness for, fearing that perhaps he may have stolen a kiss when she was defenseless with sleep, but instead admonished him for compromising her in such a way. “If someone should happen upon us alone together . . .” She didn't finish, turning to face the paneling, where some long-ago lovers had carved their initials. He went without a word, leaving her feeling as if she had been visited by an apparition.

She forced her attention back onto her father's portrait, only then noticing the film of dust over the surface of it and the awkwardly painted hand, not like any human hand she had ever seen, and the old-fashioned ruff, open at the front and high up about his ears. “Why did you have to die?” she whispered. “Was it the Queen's doing, or God's will?” She thought she saw his eyes shift but told herself not to be so fanciful and read the faded gold lettering at the side of the portrait, the Devereux motto:
Virtutis comes invidia
. She had never questioned its meaning until then:
Envy is the companion of virtue
; to be virtuous, then, is to be envied, so why strive for virtue if it turns others into sinners? A shiver moved through her despite the warm weather. Virtue by whose measure? Looking away, she saw that Spero was about to cock his leg on the wainscoting and clapped her hands loudly, shouting to divert him, chasing him out of the door, glad of the distraction.

Outside the light had begun to fade and everything had taken on a magical luminous quality. Spero scampered towards Essex, jumping up at him, marking his white stockings. Essex pushed him off, irritated, and Penelope suggested they walk a little before dark.

“I could do with stretching my legs after the journey,” she said.

They ambled side by side in silence with the dog running ahead, finding themselves at the foot of the old tower. She led the way up the tight spiral stairs, the stone steps worn to a shine by generations of ancestors' feet, to a small room now open to the elements and overgrown with ivy. They sat on a ledge, which must have served once as a windowsill, though the window was long gone, and took in the view to the west, the house a dark shape against a marmalade sky and the blushing hills beyond rolling towards the mountains of Wales.

“You do not seem yourself,” Penelope said, trying to break through her brother's silence. He had got hold of a lock of his hair and was tugging at it as if to pull it right out of his scalp. She gently wrested his hand away. “You will hurt yourself.”

He looked at her then, his eyes were flat and unlit. “All this,” he said finally, sweeping his arm about, taking in the landscape. “And all the rest. It will all be mine on my majority . . .” He stopped and she tightened her grip on his hand as if to squeeze the words from him. “And yet I am left with debts that I will never be able to pay off. The burden is so great, Sis. I fear I am not up to it. Leicester advises me to court the Queen's favor. He says if she likes me enough she will undo my debts.” He sank his chin onto his upturned palm with a sigh. “Mother never stops reminding me that the family's honor lies in my hands. She fusses about me. You know how she is.”

“Her expectations are so high,” said Penelope. “I know.” She prised the strand of hair out of his fingers, smoothing it away.

“I fear I can never live up to it all. She says I must secure the future for us. I must make us formidable . . . bring glory to the Devereuxs. Oh God, Sis, how can I ever manage it?”

“She is ambitious for us, that is all. She asked the same of me. You are young still, Robin.”

“Boys my age have been knighted on the battlefield.” His voice was filled with despair.

“But you will find your strength—give it a year or two. You are still a sapling, and you shall become a—”

“A Sidney,” he interrupted.

Hearing that name caused her heart to flounder. “Is that who you would model yourself on? He is not so well favored by the Queen.”

“That may be, but he has . . . he has something others don't . . . I can't say what it is.” He stopped, seeming to think about what it was he wanted to say. Penelope had often heard people struggle to articulate just what it was that set Sidney apart. “He is truly good.”

Penelope could not help but think that the “truly good” man they were talking of had done his best to incite her into adultery, but he was also the man who loathed cruelty of any kind, even to beasts, and was that rare thing too: a person prepared to admit he had been wrong. “He is a man of honor,” she added, aware of the inadequacy of such an expression.

“I don't have it in me to be as he is. I am beset with resentments and petty dislikes. I am hot headed, weak willed, quick to judge, vain. I want to be admired by all.” His shoulders slumped as he expelled a great gust of air.

“Do not think Sidney, or any of the great knights for that matter, are not human beneath the surface. You are only describing what it is to be a man. Knowing one's failings is a quality few have.” She stopped, before adding as an afterthought, “Sidney has feet of clay like us all.”

“I may be good in the lists and at the sword, but I am not sure I have the strength up here.” He tapped the side of his head twice, hard, with the heel of his hand.

“I will always be beside you. Never forget that.”

“Do you promise?” His face was utterly desolate but his skin was touched with roseate light, making him, with his raven curls and even with his eyes flat as slate flags, unbearably beautiful. She wondered if that beauty would be his triumph or his downfall. It was true that the Queen liked to surround herself with beautiful things. And beauty has its currency, just as there is a value in nobility, as she had learned to her cost, but there is no achievement in it.

“You have my word.” She placed a kiss on her brother's cheek. “Always.” She thought then of how she had stood up to her husband, driven a deal with him. She had achieved what she wanted through guile rather than fluttering her lashes, and it was a feeling she liked, a sense of unshakable potency in the understanding that Rich was weakened by his secrets. She would never be brought low by the fear of others' judgments—never. “I am stronger than I appear.”

“I have never doubted it.” And that dimpled smile crossed his face fleetingly, once more. But then, inexplicably, he crumpled into tears—heaving, moaning sobs as if gripped by some inner agony. “Oh, Sis, I am nothing, less than nothing . . .” Then he began to knock his head repeatedly on the rough stone of the wall.

She stood, grabbing him about the shoulders, pulling him away, remembering how he used to do the same thing as a child, beating his head against the nursery walls, and how his nurse would call for her as she was the only one who could make him stop. She had assumed he would grow out of it, they all said he would, and it cut her to the core to see that he still suffered so. She took him in her arms, kissing the swelling on his head, humming a childhood tune to soothe him. “Little Robin, you are safe with me, I will protect you—I promise.” As the words left her mouth she felt the burden of that promise settle itself heavily about her shoulders.

•  •  •

She was assigned the chamber that she had shared with Dorothy as a child but, rather than feeling comforted by this, she was beset by a sense of unease in the aftermath of her brother's outburst, and lay awake for hours. It was a still summer night, close, without a whisper of breeze, and as she listened to the quiet rhythm of Jeanne's steady breath she began to hear other sounds: the crack of a beam as the wood shrank back a little in the heat, the scratch and scurry of mice behind the skirtings, the gentle fluff of the swallows shifting in their nests in the eaves, the faint call of an owl far down in the woods, and then the unmistakable dry crunch of footsteps below the window. She at first supposed it must have been the steward making his final rounds, but then realized it was too late for that; the house had been locked up hours ago. Perhaps it was one of the grooms seeing to a lame horse, but no, the stables were on the other side.

She got out of bed and went over to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The moon was almost full and touched the edges of everything with its pale light, casting inky shadows in the places it couldn't reach. The footsteps continued, pacing back and forth, but she couldn't see to whom they belonged. Her breath clouded the panes. A figure, diaphanous and insubstantial, appeared from the gloom below, a man's shape, floating across the courtyard, disappearing into the gatehouse arch. Her heart beat frantically like a dog scratching at a flea. She ran to the bed, shaking Jeanne awake.