Constant Heart (36 page)

She wished to visit! She planned to visit! By next summer my debts would be paid, my fortunes assured, my destiny forged. I could not wait to tell Marget.

Her Majesty had let it be known that she intended to visit Brustleigh. Lytham was beside himself with joy. He intended to visit Brustleigh as well, to oversee the work, but he could not travel for heavy rains. That did not stop him from sending letters, however, one after the other, to the estate’s steward.

The miserable and continual torrents soon drowned the country’s wheat. The price of flour, indeed, of bread, became quite dear. And without the harvest, the people could neither pay rents nor place food into their mouths.

Lytham’s plan for those at Brustleigh was to put them to work on a banqueting house. Letter followed after letter. He made plans aplenty, and kept speaking to me of them all.

“I envision an intimate setting with seats carved from stone, supported by an English lion and a Welsh dragon as befits the theme of Her Majesty’s royal arms.” We were standing side-by-side, gazing out of one of the windows at the interminable rains.

A banqueting house. When we had a perfectly respectable hall in which to dine and no money at all with which to build it. If only Raleigh’s ships would return; if only he could find his gold and my lord could be returned some of his.

“My sweet?”

“My lord?”

“Does this not interest you?”

“Of course it does.” In only the most banal of ways.

“And I had thought, perhaps a shelter with colonnades or grotesques holding up the roof.”

I sighed. “Why not lions rampant?”

“Lions rampant! Brilliant. Lions holding up the roof with their paws, just so.” He struck the pose, one foot lifted, one hand stretched up in front of him, the other held above his head. And then he brought both hands together in a clap. “You are so very clever! I will command it done this day.”

It was not difficult to know how to please one obsessed with a single idea, moved by a sole purpose. I did not know what would happen to Lytham should Her Majesty fail to visit.

40

B
rustleigh was all he spoke of that summer. And the syllables of that word came to echo the fall of the rain, came to pelt upon my nerves with such insistence that I thought I might go mad. Brustleigh presented itself between us even in bed.

“You do not sleep, my lord?”

“I cannot decide what diversions to offer Her Majesty. At Brustleigh.”

“A masque?”

“Perhaps.”

“A play?”

“But on what theme?” he pondered.

“Diana?”

“It has already been done.”

“Venus?”

“ ’Tis been done to death.”

“I do not think she would protest.” Did she ever?

“But I want something . . . new.”

“There
is
nothing new. Her Majesty is a Queen of thirty-six years. She has heard every flattery that one can offer. And even those which cannot.”

“There must be something.”

I heard myself sigh. Turning from him, I wanted only to sleep. My head had pained me that month without reprieve. But once set to the tune of Brustleigh, my thoughts began to march on their own. And they fixed upon my responsibilities. There were curtains to have made and tapestries to be commanded. I would need to order Her Majesty’s initials embroidered on her bed linens.
My
bed linens. I would have done it myself, but my fingers would no longer guide a needle. My hands were useless.

September brought no harvests of the normal kind, but it did bring Raleigh’s ships to harbor. And with them came such incredible tales! For a while they were the only topic spoken of at court.

“They say there are men living along the Orinoco who . . . eat each other.”

“Nay!”

“Aye! And their heads grow beneath their shoulders instead of on top!”

I tried to imagine such a person, but confess I could not do it.

“But he has found El Dorado?”

“He has located the gold mines?”

In fact, he had not.

There was no use in berating Lytham. And no use in mourning lost monies. We went on with our activities and took part at court in the ways we always had. I vowed that if Lytham were able to keep thoughts of insolvency from his conscience, then so would I.

Despite the winter’s cold, we went once more to Brustleigh. I could remember the gripping, grasping cold of previous winters there and came to the house with great reluctance. That year, however, the cold did not assault me. Even without a warming box, my toes stayed warm. My nose also kept its heat. When I might have ordered a fire built high, I asked instead for logs to be pulled to the side. While my ladies shivered beneath their cloaks, I cast mine off. And several weeks later, I was made to know why. Within me, I felt a quickening. I resolved not to leap before myself to the birth. And I guarded the precious secret, sharing it only with Joan. But I caught myself smiling at my maids’ needlework or humming to myself when I took exercise in the gardens.

Her Majesty’s officials came to visit us at the end of February. They were planning Her Majesty’s Summer Progress. It seemed Lytham’s dream was about to come true. The men looked among the chambers. They toured the kitchens. And the stables. And the storehouses. Lytham showed them all that might be of interest and even those things that probably were not.

I idled about the Great Hall, waiting for their return.

They stepped into the room with the air of men having finished their business. But then Lytham spoke. “Do you wish to see the park?”

“You have a park, my lord?”

“I do. It would be my pleasure to offer it to her Majesty for a diversion.”

“It has been stocked recently then, my lord?”

“Four years past.”

The officials frowned.

“Of course, I was planning to restock it again this spring.”

“We need to know, my lord, if the plague has been here recently.”

“In this parish? The last appearance was some dozen years ago.”

The men bowed and turned to leave. Lytham and I escorted them into the courtyard.

The officers nodded their thanks. One of them spat into the straw while the other surveyed the property. “That, on the mound over there, my lord. Is that a banqueting house?”

“Aye.”

“You may take us there, my lord.”

In turning to walk with them, Lytham made a frantic motion to me.

I interpreted it to mean I should offer them refreshment.

Returning to the kitchen in haste, I commanded food and drink be taken to the mound. And quickly, without being seen.

Cook loaded one servant with plates. Another with cups. A third with figs and dates and a fourth with sweet cakes. And then she sent them off at a run.

I climbed the stairs to my chambers and stood in the window, marking their progress. Lytham was walking slowly and with much gesturing down the right side of the gardens. On the other side, bent at the waist, ran the servants. Lytham and his men had started toward the mound first, but the servants had the advantage of speed.

As I stood there, wringing my hands, my maids joined me.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath as Lytham began to lead the men toward the fountain in the middle of the garden. And then a sigh of relief as their attention was drawn toward a statue behind them and to their right.

That distraction gave the servants time to reach the mound and distribute plate and food.

By the time Lytham and the officials had reached the banqueting house, the servants stood at the side of the table, waiting. I only hoped they would not be doing so with great huffing breaths or hacking coughs.

Two weeks later, once we had returned to London, Lytham laughed in delight when the itinerary for Her Majesty’s Progress was published. It had Brustleigh Hall writ upon it for all to see.

Lady de Winter was generous in suggesting those things that might impress Her Majesty most. Chief among them was the provision of a throne. The very idea of providing the Queen with a new throne became Lytham’s newest obsession. He seized upon it like a child presented with a new amusement.

“A throne? But already she must have at least a dozen!” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded shrill.

“But she does not yet have one at Brustleigh.” His tones were measured, as if he were speaking to an infant.

“Surely she will bring one of her own.”

“Not if we let her household officers know that we have one.”

“And will that impress her? Will that cause her to grant you a sign of preferment? Or will it be perhaps one thing more? Can you not see? This leads only to ruin. Our ruin! We have stacks of bills that have already come due. Must we add to their number still one more?”

“What can one more possibly matter?”

“If you cared for my thoughts half as much as you cared for hers, you would know that it does!”

“You know that I care for you.”

“Do you? Truly? Because all that I know is that you have spent all of your time, all of your fortune, and all of your future on a woman who demands from you everything and promises nothing in return. You respond to her every wish, her every whim as if you were her lapdog. And it is I who am your wife!”

“Shall I order a throne made for you as well? I could enthrone you as queen of my heart.”

He was trying to make me smile, but I would not do it. “I would rather be queen of your monies.”

“Ah, but there, I fear you might become a ruthless tyrant.”

“No more ruthless than she.” We both knew of whom I was speaking.

“It is only because she is the Queen, my sweet—”

“Then why do I feel as if I am your mistress?” I could bear no more. I turned and left the chamber.

“I am a courtier! How can you fault me for what I have done? What else would you have me do?” His words followed me down the length of the passage.

When he did nothing that day or the next to assuage my hurt, I realized that his distraction was complete. He could not see past the great glittering crown on Her Majesty’s head. In spite of my protests, he ordered a throne made to his specifications and then, once he had obtained it, we galloped to Brustleigh with it to confer with the parish officials on the visit.

As they met with Lytham in the Great Hall, and I listened to the conversation, I realized their thoughts were the same as my own. There was no excitement, no joy in discussing Her Majesty’s summer visit. Only great consternation at the wealth of food, fuel, and fodder that Her Majesty asked to be provided.

I could not understand it! The men should be rejoicing at the prospect of Her Majesty’s visit, but they protested at every opportunity. “But you will be reimbursed at a reasonable price, man!”

“It is not the reimbursement we mistrust, my lord. It is the quantity of stores that must be provided. How are we to come by them? And where shall they be kept?”

“If you need storehouses, I will supply them.”

“We need storehouses.”

“Then I will supply them. Now, what about the painting to be done and the gowns to be made?”

“What painting? Which gowns?”

“Of the buildings. For the churchwardens.”

And so it went. The parish officials bristled at the inconvenience and decried lack of funds while I pulled open my purse strings and bid them take what they needed. If only they knew how very little there was.

There were presents to be thought of and ordered. A large one for Her Majesty and lesser ones for the courtiers and officials accompanying her. Each day brought new crises. Things to which I had not given a moment’s thought. Things like horses.

“Nicholas!”

“My lord?”

“Why did you not ask me to think on the horses?”

“Which horses, my lord?”

“Those which will come. With all of the court.”

“I—”

“We must have feed. And hay. And grooms aplenty. And we must provide fresh mounts.”

“I will see to it, my lord.”

Several days later, I stood with Marget in her chambers . . . rather, Her Majesty’s chambers, gazing out at the park stretched before us. All had been arranged in a knot garden. The old trees and shrubs had been dug out and carted away. And then, I realized of a sudden, what that portended. “What have I done!”