Watch the Lady (13 page)

Once out of the room she grabbed hold of her companion's arm and dragged her away down the corridor in haste, waiting until they were out of earshot before asking, “What on earth is
he
doing here?”

“I wanted to warn you but didn't have the chance.” She stopped, turning to face her friend, putting a hand on each of her shoulders, suddenly grave.

“What is it?” asked Penelope, feeling a rising alarm.

“Your stepfather is trying to broker a match between Sidney and Dorothy.”

“My own sister! No!” Light-headed, she put a hand out to the wall to steady herself. “That can't be right. Sidney hasn't the wealth for us impoverished Devereux girls.” She collapsed onto a window seat, plopping the puppy into her lap.

Jeanne sat too, wrapping an arm around her friend, smoothing a palm over her tense shoulders.

“I thought Leicester had hopes she would wed the Scottish King,” Penelope muttered. “What happened to
that
idea? Now I have brought Rich to the family, my sister is free to wed—”

“I don't think it is like that. I don't think your sister is willing. I don't even think she was aware of it. Not judging by the look on her face when it was mentioned.” Jeanne began to stroke Penelope's hair. They both knew, well enough, that if it was Leicester's wish, then Dorothy would wed Sidney whether anyone wanted it or not.

“You are lucky not to have anyone telling you who you must wed—” She stopped herself, bringing a hand to cover her mouth, remembering the terrible circumstances in which Jeanne lost her parents. “I am so sorry. I didn't mean it.”

“I know you do not mean it and anyway I have no wish to wed just yet.”

“You have a good heart, not vindictive and spoiled like mine.” Penelope was thinking how lucky she was to have a person such as Jeanne to trust with her secrets.

The sound of footsteps nearing silenced them and, looking up, they saw the black shape of Sidney approaching down the passage. He stopped in front of them, giving a tight smile.

“I apologize for interrupting, ladies, but I wonder if I might have a word with Lady Rich alone?” Behind that clipped sentence he seemed to be making an attempt to contain something. Penelope wondered if it was rage or misery.

“I shall take the puppy to the kitchens and find him something to eat,” said Jeanne with false brightness, picking up the sleeping dog and leaving them alone.

Sidney sat beside her, close but not quite touching, and she edged away slightly, fearing his nearness. “I wonder what it is that makes you so merry.” His voice, so full of bitterness, sent a wave of wretchedness over her.

“I am not particularly merry,” she said, allowing her guard to lower minutely and looking over at him, sitting, shuffling his hands together in his lap as if about to deal a round of cards. Her heart began to bloat inside her breast, until she felt she might not be able to breathe. “Not merry to hear that you plan to wed my sister.”

“Oh, Lord!” He wiped the back of a hand over his forehead. “I have no intention of marrying Dorothy. I was merely humoring my uncle. Surely you know that.”

“And how can I trust you? You certainly have not given me reason.”

He looked cowed and small, not his elegant, splendid, usual self, and it was all she could do to resist reaching out and touching him. It dawned on her that all those years of yearning for some silly romantic ideal had nothing to do with this man at all. But it was this man, this Sidney, slumped beside her, with his blemished skin and slightly thinning hair, with his brooding demeanor and (she noticed for the first time) bitten fingernails, that had caught her heart and caged it like a bird.

“I should not be talking to you, here alone like this,” she said. “I am a married woman.' He seemed to flinch as she said it. “And you
will
be promised to my sister. Even
you
are not in a position to disobey Leicester.”

His expression matched her sense of desolation. “I have something for you.” He pulled a fold of paper from his doublet and all his self-assurance seemed to fall away.

She took it, opened it. “A sonnet.” She stated the obvious to fill the silence.

“One of many. Will you read it? If you cared even a jot for me once”—he stopped, seeming lost for words, continuing without looking at her—“then let me hear you recite my lines.”

Her voice was barely more than a whisper as she read:
“ ‘When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes . . .' ”
She read to the end, then let her hands drop heavily and, taking a deep inhalation, gathered herself together. “
I
am Stella?”

He nodded and his pale eyes looked so deeply mournful she could hardly bear to look at them, but neither could she bear to tear herself away.

“The distant star—and who are you?”

“I am Astrophil.” Something seemed to change in him as if he were unfolding.

“The star lover.” She whispered. “So you
do
love me?”

He nodded again, this time with a flicker of a smile.

“What happened to force this change of heart?”

“I don't know. I was confused, felt blighted at losing the Leicester inheritance and ostracized by the Queen. I thought I had nothing to offer you . . . compared to Rich.” He spat her husband's name as if he had sucked poison from a snakebite. “And I did not think my feelings ran so deep until it was too late. Love can surprise in its suddenness. Besides, you know as well as I the folly of being led into matrimony by passion.” The words spilled out of him urgently, as if time was running out. His usual veneer of self-assurance had abandoned him entirely; she could never have imagined this vulnerable creature beneath that surface.

“Is it folly, or the path to happiness?” Her voice was bristling with cynicism.

“I thought my feelings would pass. I was a fool.”

“And when you realized they would not pass, you still thought me not worth fighting for.”

“No!”

She wanted, desperately, to take his hand, with its ink-smudged index finger, lean her body into his, to allow herself to be subsumed by him.

“I
did
fight for you. I begged the Queen to allow me to court you. I reminded her of your father's wish.”

“You petitioned the Queen?” It began to dawn on her that she had gravely misunderstood the situation.

“She laughed in my face, asked why I thought ‘a disappointment' like me—yes, that is what she called me, ‘a disappointment'—should have permission to court her favorite maid. Then she sent me packing. “ ‘You are not a man I fully trust, Sidney,' she said.” He let go of her hand and cupped his palms, dropping his face into them as if ashamed, his speech barely audible. “She thinks me too outspoken and dislikes my Catholic friends. But I am a person who speaks my mind and loyalty is a matter of honor for me, even when it comes to those who have differing beliefs.”

“So it is
her
fault.” Penelope felt clogged with loathing for the woman who had visited a catalogue of disasters on her family. “And I am stuck for all eternity with that man.”
Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder
.

“It is consummated, then,” he muttered, seeming to think aloud, still unable to look at her.

“Of course,” she whispered.

“I had hoped, beyond reason, that there would be some way the union would not”—he stammered, seeming unable to put his thoughts into words—“could . . . could be annulled, and that in time we might have convinced the world to . . .” He stopped again. “What a fool I have been with my hopeless dreams.”

He looked up at her then, his face stricken, opening his arms, and she allowed herself to be enveloped in his embrace. They held each other tight, eyes closed, as if to shut out the entire world until the sound of someone nearing caused them to snap apart. They inspected their hands as one of Leicester's clerks passed carrying a sheaf of papers, sitting in silence until he had disappeared through the far door. “Let me come to your chamber tonight.”

“No, I cannot.”

“I beg of you.”

“No, no! Anyway I will not be alone. Jeanne and my sister will be with me.”

“Then somewhere else . . . please.”

“No!” She could not look at him any longer for fear that she would lose her resolve. “And what of
Dorothy
? You are promised to my sister.”

“I am not promised.”

“Not yet,” she said. “You must go.” They sat in silence for what seemed like an age. “You must go,” she repeated.

Eventually, he stood, walking slowly away, and she thought her heart would burst with longing.

“I will wait for you,” he said, looking back towards her, “in the music room that overlooks the river . . . all night if I must.”

It was Penelope's first night at Leighs, though she had been married four months. She had been at court, mustering favor and trying to understand the complicated web of loyalties surrounding the Queen. There had been new rumors of a planned assassination and they had all been on tenterhooks, apart from the Queen herself, who always seemed cool as a November pond; so in truth Penelope was glad to get away. She was in her bedchamber alone, by the hearth, awaiting her husband and unsuccessfully trying to banish Sidney from her mind. It had been some three months since their encounter—three months of feigned happiness. She threw a log on the fire and yawned, wondering how much longer her husband would keep her waiting. She had left him in the chapel praying fervently.

Earlier she and Jeanne had wandered about the house with its labyrinthine corridors joining the old parts to the new. It had once been a religious establishment, and the evidence of its earlier use could be found in the occasional carving of a saint or a cross, tucked away in a neglected corner. The place had the same solemn atmosphere of the Smithfield house, where she spent the occasional night when she was not required at court. It was a gloomy place that had the musty smell of a mausoleum and an oppressive silence pervaded. On each visit she had been required to perform her conjugal duties. Every occasion was as perplexing as her wedding night had been, and Rich, who was civil enough, if distant, during the daylight hours, became charged with anger as night fell. He never harmed her again, but the threat of it loomed over their nocturnal dealings and she was always thankful to know that Jeanne was on the other side of the wall but worried too that she would overhear Rich's fervent biblical recitations punctuated by the breathless panting and moaning. When Rich was done and gone, Penelope would knock on the paneling and Jeanne, dozy with sleep, would come quietly and slide into bed beside her.

“This is all yours?” Jeanne had exclaimed on their arrival at Leighs, as they rushed about the great house like overwrought children, bursting into the great hall, holding hands and spinning in the vast space until they were gasping with laughter.

“Mine but yet not mine,” she'd replied, once their excitement had abated. “It feels dead, as if no one has lived here for years.” She would so much rather have remained at Wanstead with Lettice, where they had stopped for a night on the way, her mother hungrily grabbing at any information she might have gleaned from the privy chamber.

Penelope always thought of Wanstead bathed in sunlight and filled with music, like a corner of earthly paradise, filled with joyful memories of the brief interludes spent with her family, rendered sweeter perhaps by the comparison with her life at the Huntingdons' in the north, where the miserable weather always seemed in league with the ambiance. An unsmiling servant showed them to Penelope's own suite of rooms, which faced to the north and were further shadowed by three towering elms, ancient and knotted and leaning towards each other at the top, like a huddle of elderly men sharing a secret. There were three large chambers leading one to the other.

Jeanne had helped her undress and they had combed each other's hair before retiring, singing a song they had heard at court very quietly so as not to be overheard, for Rich had made it quite clear that music was forbidden at Leighs. Once Jeanne had gone Penelope sat before the fire; it crackled, flaring blue on the dry bark of a new log, and her thoughts wandered back to that night at Leicester House.

In the aftermath of that last encounter with Sidney she had lain awake in bed, filled with anger and confusion towards the forces that had contributed to her situation. It was as if God was mocking her by making her love one man—for if it was not love, then she knew not what it could be, that burning awareness that life could only make sense in proximity to him—yet be wed to another who cared nothing for her. Dorothy was sleeping soundly beside her, the soft rhythm of her breath punctuating the silence, a taunting reminder of the betrothal plans that had been concocted on her behalf. The idea of Sidney wed to her sister was unthinkable, akin to anticipating one's own passing. The knowledge that Sidney was waiting for her in the music room—his words whispered in her head,
all night if I must
, had drawn her as the moon pulls the oceans, and it felt inevitable when she finally slipped out of the bed into the night chill.

Fumbling in the dark for her gown, she began to be aware of her heart palpitating in her breast, as if it had taken on a separate life, as if something was growing in there, something planted by Sidney that would not be uprooted. The chamber was cold—cold enough, as her eyes became accustomed to the dark, for her to see little clouds of her own breath in the vague moonlight. She tied her gown tightly at her throat and found a shawl which she wrapped about her shoulders, then wondered if she should dress properly, couldn't imagine confronting Sidney in her nightclothes. Though of course her nightclothes would be exactly appropriate for such an assignation. Before she thought too much about it she picked up the puppy, shoved her feet into her slippers, and slid out of the room like a specter.