Watch the Lady (30 page)

“My brother thinks it a victory,” says Penelope quietly as she picks up a pack of playing cards, handing it to Blount. She casts her eye about the room and asks the usher who is standing by the door to leave. She believes him to be trustworthy but the fewer people who listen in, the less likely things are to get out. When the door has shut she continues, “I fear Essex went too far to gain ground over Cecil.”

“Even now, do you doubt Doctor Lopez's guilt?”

“Oh, I don't know, Charles. It is all so opaque . . . You think you know someone. He was a gentle soul . . . and honest, or so I thought. An honest man stands out amongst all that duplicity and . . . well, Lopez seemed honest to me.” Blount shuffles the cards and deals. “It is possible, I suppose, that he became unwittingly embroiled in something; but I feel sure he was not as guilty as my brother believed.”

Essex had been like a dog with a dead rabbit, his teeth firmly gripped about its throat. Penelope feels sick at the thought of Lopez meeting his end on the scaffold—a traitor's death, the worst kind: a horrific spectacle of suffering. She thinks in the distance she can hear the roar of the crowd baying for blood but knows it is in her imagination; Doctor Lopez died over an hour ago.

Blount must see her distress for he leans towards her across the table, taking her upper arms in his hands. “I know he was dear to you.”

“He saved Lucy's life.”

“I know, but the evidence against him
was
convincing,” says Blount, leaning back but keeping a hand on her forearm. Their game is forgotten.

“Well, it would have been, wouldn't it? Evidence is meaningless.” Penelope cannot prevent her voice from cracking.

“There were rumors years ago that he was concocting poisons. It is
possible
he truly intended to do away with the Queen.”

“What, the very man who cared for her health for years?” She stops. “I know, I know, people are complex creatures and what they do doesn't always make sense.”

“Your brother was entirely convinced of his guilt,” says Blount. “Though I did try to make him look further into it. I felt sure there was a way to deal with the situation without it ending in . . .” He doesn't say the word
execution
but it is an axe suspended silently in the air.

“I know you did what you could, as did I.” But she wonders if she might have done more. She had tried to speak to the Queen and at least persuade her to delay the execution, but Elizabeth refused to have anything spoken of it, said justice must run its course. “Sometimes people see what they want to see.”

She has been worried about Essex lately; there is a disconcerting zeal about him. The Queen's favor knows no bounds as far as he is concerned, and it is going to his head. And the uncovering of this plot, if that is what it was, has thrust him further into the ascendency. He has become overinflated and his bubble will burst. Penelope has gathered the broken fragments of her brother many times over the years and she recognizes the signs.

“I'm puzzled by Cecil,” says Blount. “If Doctor Lopez had been working as a double agent, as he claimed, then surely Cecil would have been au courante. But he pleaded ignorance of the entire affair.”

“Cecil can't be trusted,” she says, wondering if it could be possible that it was Cecil who threw Lopez to the wolves, trying to understand what advantage it would have gained him, unable to find a reason. “But my brother's fervor was excessive.” She shakes her head and feels all of a sudden as if everything is too fragile, as if she too could find herself inside the Tower having information extracted from her like Lopez. It would take only a small slip; for the wrong person to whisper in the wrong ear. Panic rises in her from nowhere.

“Penelope?” The sound of Blount's voice soothes her and the panic recedes.

“Will you keep an eye on my brother?” she asks.

“Of course I will. For your sake.” He leans across the table once more, this time kissing her on the lips and stroking her cheek. “For
our
sake.”

“Sometimes I imagine us living together as man and wife.” She is not quite able to articulate what she means by that: a life that is not lived on the edge of a precipice and weighed down by secrets.

“I think of nothing else.”

“Now you exaggerate. Your mind is always turned to politics.”

“And yours is not?”

He is right. She could not give up the feeling of power her secrets give her and the sense of herself as a cog in the machine of government. She is party to the covert information gathered by Anthony Bacon, secrets that could have great bearing on the state. She imagines Essex House as the root of a vine that spreads out, down through Europe, over to Ireland in the west, up to Scotland in the north. “I have had correspondence lately, from Scotland.” The thought assaults her, not for the first time, that this correspondence could quite well be used as evidence one day should
she
be tried for treason, if someone wanted rid of her. That particular long-awaited letter had fallen from her sleeve in the privy chamber before she'd had the chance to burn it. Peg Carey had plucked it up, quick as a magpie.

“What is this? A love letter?” She had held it to her nose and sniffed, as if she might have smelled its contents. “What are you hiding from us?” She was pretending to tease but Penelope feared she knew something and she could see Cecil watching the exchange from the corner of her eye. It was little consolation that Peg Carey was a kinswoman.

“Don't be silly,” said Penelope, trying to sound unperturbed, though her heart was throbbing, and holding her hand out for the letter, marveling that it didn't tremble.

After what seemed an infinite pause Peg relented and handed the letter back with an indecipherable smile.

“Thank you,” she said as she slipped it into the fire, watching it burn right away, resolving never to read such things at court in future. “Just another petition.”

She inhales sharply to erase the memory.

“From King James?” asks Blount.

“Not the King himself, but from one close to him, suggesting he might welcome our allegiance. It is discreetly written but the implication is undeniable.” She looks at her lover and sees that his face is filled with concern. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“I have been doing this a long time. It is five years since I first put feelers out in that direction, so I know how to cover my tracks.” The look of concern is still there. It is only lately that she has felt sufficient trust to discuss such things with Blount. It is one thing to trust a lover with your heart, quite another to share confidences that could take them both to the scaffold. “Sometimes I wonder if patience is not the most important quality in statecraft. I wish my brother would come to understand that. He is so very impetuous.” A shiver runs through her, as if someone is walking over her grave, and with it a thought: that she might one day have to distance herself from her rash brother—there are so many stories of those who have striven to reach too high and none end well.

She pushes the thought aside, reminding herself that the ties of family are unbreakable and that the love she has for her brother is immutable, despite his imprudent ways. Besides, she is there to curb him. It was ever thus: as the eldest, it was her duty to stop his climbing to the highest branches of the orchard trees at Chartley or mounting the unbroken ponies in the paddock or running the river rapids on a homemade raft tied together with twine, all just to demonstrate his courage. But she had failed to curb him on this occasion.

It is a burden indeed to carry the weight of an entire family's hopes and dreams. She has a picture of those eyes, flat and dead with gloom. When her mother announced their father's death, she said to him, “You are the Earl of Essex now.” He had looked forlorn and small, much smaller than his ten years. “You have the responsibility of the Devereuxs. You are the head of the family.” It was as if his childhood was stolen from him in an instant, and it was soon after that she saw the empty, stone-eyed look for the first time.

“If you had been a boy, you would have made a fine statesman,” Blount says playfully. He is trying to cheer her up and she loves him all the more for it.

“And if you had been a woman, you would have made a terrible wife with your nose always in a book. Your husband would fear you getting above yourself with learning.” He laughs at this and flutters his eyelashes like a maid. She is glad of the levity, even if it is a little forced.

“Think,” she says, serious now. “If we were to live at Wanstead together, imagine how our life would be.”

“I fear you could not bear such a quiet life.”

“Not now, perhaps, but one day.”

“One day,” he echoes. “Why do you love Wanstead so?”

“I don't know exactly what it is; there is an atmosphere of contentment about the place. It was a refuge too, when I was first married.” What she doesn't say is that it is a place that is untouched for her by memories of Sidney, who haunts every other place. Blount takes her hand, weaving his fingers through hers.

The door opens and they snatch back their hands, picking up their cards once more. “Your turn,” says Penelope, as Essex invades the room with an entourage that includes her husband. Rich glances her way briefly. They had argued recently about Blount, when Rich had reminded her about her promise of discretion. “Do you think I want to wear a cuckold's horns for all to laugh at behind their hands at court? Is it not enough that I let you raise his daughter with my own children?” She had not mentioned that she thought she might be with child once more. Neither has she told Blount, for the last time she'd miscarried and he had been brought so low by it.

“I have kept my side of the bargain,” she'd replied to Rich. “I have served as your foil and turned a blind eye to your . . .” She didn't know quite how to describe his affairs, never had found a satisfactory term. “You have two sons in the nursery,” she reminded him. “And fine boys they are too.”

Penelope's heart is always squeezed when she thinks of her children. Her mother never fails to tell her she is overindulgent with them, but she cannot help herself. On her last visit to Leighs she had brought them a pair of guinea pigs, a rarity procured at great expense from a merchant, and feels a flush of warmth remembering their delight on being introduced to the odd creatures with their beadlike eyes and twitching whiskery noses.

There is a disturbing air of suppressed excitement about her brother and his crowd, as if they have been carousing or fighting.

“Is it still raining?” she asks, noticing that Essex's hair is slick. It has hardly stopped raining all summer, which will likely ruin the harvest.

“You must have heard it. It was torrential,” says Essex, shaking his head like a dog. Rich flinches as a wave of droplets catches his face, causing Essex to laugh. Rich laughs too, ingratiatingly. Essex cannot ever do wrong in Rich's book, and Penelope has often wondered if there was an unrequited longing there.

“You have a letter,” says Essex, proffering a damp fold of paper towards Blount. “Your man was searching everywhere for you.” This causes a venomous glare from Rich, who must have supposed them cached away together, up to no good.

“We were in here all the time,” she says. “Playing cards.”

Blount has opened the letter and scanned it and is now sitting, wearing an expression of shock.

“What is it?” Penelope asks.

“My brother is dead.” He looks utterly deflated. “Suddenly.”

“I am so very sorry, Charles,” she says, wanting desperately to comfort him but unable to—not in public and in the company of her husband.

“It is God's will,” says Essex, patting him on the back in that awkward way men have when grief is concerned. “I suppose it means you are Lord Mountjoy now.”

Penelope kicks her brother sharply on the ankle, annoyed at his tactlessness.

“Would you kindly excuse me?” Blount says, rising and leaving the room. Penelope wants to follow him out but feels Rich's eyes on her. It would not be seemly. She begins to clear away the cards, gathering them together and tying them with a frayed length of ribbon. Essex peels off his wet doublet and flings it to his man. Rich watches him. Sudden understanding alights in her and with it a heavy feeling; of course, they have come from Doctor Lopez's execution. That is the reason for her brother's callous mood. Anger buzzes about her and she stands, taking her brother's arm, pulling him to one side.

“You went too far with the Lopez business,” she whispers. “Much too far. You should have listened to me. I am horrified—”

“For God's sake, Sis,” he interrupts. “You do not know the truth of it. The man was guilty; he planned to poison the Queen. He was a traitor. I have saved Her Majesty from assassination.”

“Or you have convinced yourself so.”

“He was guilty, I heard his confession with my own ears, so don't patronize me, Penelope. I am not your infant brother anymore. And look how my star is in the ascendant while Cecil—he wears boots of lead.” He takes her chin, turning her face to his. “Don't you understand, I do this for
us
.”

“I know,” she says, repeating, “I know.” He is drawn tight as a bowstring.

“You don't know what it is like. So many would see me brought down: Cecil, Ralegh, and all their minions.” He is hissing out his words with livid vehemence now. “Just because it doesn't appear as such, does not mean it is not a war. People die in wars.”

Her brother's world is painted black and white: it is either war or peace, kill or be killed, high or low—there is nothing in between.

“It would serve you to be more measured . . . and do not go about celebrating the poor man's death. Show some decency.” She is thinking of Doctor Lopez's widow. She will set up an anonymous stipend for her; that will in some small way make amends.