Elizabeth I (94 page)

Robert recovered from his bad attack of flux, slowly gaining back strength. So I was told. I was not allowed to see him, and neither was Frances, in spite of her pleas. His brush with death had intensified his religious mania, and now he spent hours in prayer and ecstasies, just as he had once spent hours choosing clothes and drinking. He did nothing in moderation. The Queen, meanwhile, seemed to have stashed him at York House and quite forgotten him, carrying on one of her diplomatic endeavors with visiting Dutch envoys.

Then, suddenly, as was her wont, she issued orders that Sir Egerton was to be relieved of his duty as Robert’s keeper, returning Robert to Essex House under the supervision of Sir Richard Berkeley. He was still forbidden to leave his house and not permitted visitors. We were all to vacate, immediately, and find other quarters.

“Where does she expect us to go?” I asked Frances. “I have no other lodging in London.”

“She wants us out of London, I daresay,” said Frances. “We can move to Barn Elms. It is not so far out of the city.”

“Or go to Wanstead. But that is even farther.” Forget Drayton Bassett! I might as well be in Cádiz there.

“Charles Blount has a house in the city,” said Christopher. “It isn’t grand, but at least it’s within the city walls. He’s in Ireland, after all. Since Penelope is living there, how can she deny her mother and family a place?”

“Very easily. She can say there’s no room. And there probably isn’t.”

“Better a small house with some furniture than a big one that’s bare,” said Christopher.

“My, that sounds biblical,” I said. I said it lightly, but lately Christopher had been carrying a rosary tucked in his sleeve. I was warning him that I had seen. “So, will we invite ourselves to move in with Penelope?”

“We have no choice, if we want to stay in London. Do we?” asked Christopher.

“Yes!” said Frances. “We must be near Robert!”

It had come, inevitably, that moment when appeals are made to one’s children. I was in need now. And these, my children, would now have to bear my helplessness and my supplications.

Penelope lived in the northwestern part of the city, in a large house alongside the wall between Cripplegate and Aldersgate. It was a relatively quiet area, protected from street noise and traffic by its large walled garden.

“Penelope!” I called, rapping quickly on the thick wood door. The others lined up behind me, well-dressed beggars.

She herself opened the door, smiling. “My displaced clan gathers,” she said. “A pity it is for this reason that you come under my roof.”

Did she mean it was a pity that her scandalous liaison with Charles Blount meant that they entertained few official visitors, or that it was a pity we were in this plight? Both, perhaps. “It is long overdue,” I said, stepping in and motioning to the others to follow. In came Frances; her elder daughter, Elizabeth; nine-year-old Robert; the nurse, clutching the new baby; and Christopher, ill at ease at having to ask for charity.

“I welcome you,” said Penelope. “It has been lonely here since Charles went to Ireland. Elizabeth Vernon went to live with her husband at Drury House. Of course, a house full of children is never quiet, but they are hardly true company.”

Since she now had nine children, ranging in age from thirteen to the crib, she knew whereof she spoke. Children filled one space while leaving others empty. “You are as fertile as the orchards of Normandy,” I said. “And as perpetually lovely. No matter how many years an apple tree has borne fruit, its blossoms every spring rival the youngest trees. And so do you, my daughter.”

I was proud of her, as confounded by her beauty as everyone else.

She looked impatient, annoyed at having her most noticeable feature remarked upon yet again. “Come, I’ll show you your rooms.”

The house was larger inside than it looked. The downstairs rooms stretched long and narrow back toward the private garden, light flooding in from the side windows; upstairs there were many chambers, some of them spacious and others snug under slanting eaves. It had an air of sunny contentment. Lord Rich’s house was grander, but Penelope had lived in it without any contentment at all. I put my things down on the bed with a clean feeling of relief to be in a simple, ordered place, a place with no memories.

That night at dinner we spoke in hushed voices. All the children had finally been settled in their beds.

Penelope sighed and took a sip of her wine. “Ah. That first taste of wine, earned after a long day’s watching of little ones, is the best vintage there is.” She looked at me. “You know what I mean, Mother,” she said, almost winking.

“You have left me far behind in that contest,” I said. “Yet I do concur, the first few moments after a job well done are always the sweetest. Savor them.”

An unknowing person would have envied the faces reflected in the gleaming dark wood of the table—the most beautiful woman in London, another woman who was twice countess and cousin to the Queen, a brave soldier, another woman, wife in turn to the two foremost men of her time. My long earrings caught the candlelight and twinkled in the mirrorlike surface of the table; Penelope’s rich curls almost touched the wood. Yet we mimicked condemned prisoners, our faces grim.

“Have you any word from Charles?” asked Christopher.

“Only indirectly, from men returning. He has barely arrived there; it just seems long to us.” Penelope tapped her fingers on the table, her long nails clicking.

“Well, what do they say?” pressed Christopher.

“That the morale was so low before he came, he raises it just by setting foot there.”

“As long as that’s all that’s raised. No expectations.”

“I don’t think anyone has any expectations for Ireland now. We are quite threadbare of hopes,” Frances said.

“What about—the Queen? Does she have hopes—expectations?” Penelope wondered.

“No one knows what she thinks,” I said. “They never have. They never will. But I imagine she has a grim determination to trudge on. She never admits defeat.”

“So far she has never had to. This may be different,” said Christopher.

It might be. It might not be. I cared not. I cared only that Robert be spared and set free. God forgive me, I did not even care what happened to England. I was past that.

“
If
Charles can turn the tide in Ireland, she will be more amenable to forgiving Robert. If he cannot, then Robert will be held doubly responsible for the loss there. So we
must
hope. We
must
,” said Penelope.

A strapping servant entered with a pewter platter heaped with slices of carved pork, followed by another with a mound of honeyed parsnips and carrots. A third refilled our wine goblets with claret. All talk ceased for those moments, but not our thoughts.

“Sir Richard Berkeley is to mind him,” said Christopher, after they retreated back to the kitchen. “He’ll keep a keen eye on him.” He thrust a piece of meat into his mouth.

“At least we know he finds torture distasteful,” said Penelope. “Or he did when he was warden of the Tower.” She moved her food around on her plate but did not eat.

“It is torture for Robert to be imprisoned, kept solitary in our stripped house, held without a trial!” Frances cried.

“Do not long for a trial,” cautioned Christopher. “Can you name any accused of high crimes who are pronounced ‘not guilty’ and let go? Better not to have a trial.”

“Trials are nothing but a showcase where the judges pronounce what has already been decided,” agreed Penelope. “His only hope of escape is to avoid a trial.” She took a long drink of wine.

“What does that say about our celebrated English legal system?” I said bitterly.

“That it’s as flawed as a three-armed octopus,” said Christopher. “But three arms are better than no arms.”

For those with no cares, it would have been lovely to live in this stone house with its leafy garden, on this gracious street of goldsmiths, cordwainers, and trade halls—barbers’, embroiderers’, haberdashers’—along with small publishers and alehouses. It was a lively area, and its refined trades did not spew forth foul smells and garbage.

But we did have cares, and the tranquil setting could not soothe us. It acted only as a frame to our torment.

The days passed as Robert was held incommunicado in Essex House. April came, then May. Frances wrote more plaintive letters to the Queen, which received no reply. We heard at last that Charles Blount had taken the sword of state in Dublin and immediately set about a fierce campaign in the south, where O’Neill had ventured. Although Charles had an army only two-thirds the size of Robert’s, he had what Robert had never had—the unqualified support of the Queen and council. His requests for funds and supplies were promptly met, and as a result O’Neill quickly had to retreat north, abandoning his new conquests.

Penelope was elated, but at the same time she did not want to rub salt in our wounds, to remind us that Charles was succeeding where Robert had failed. Her loyalty to her brother and her lover pulled her first one way, then the other.

“Perhaps it means the Queen has learned from the mistakes she made with Robert,” she said. “A victory in Ireland, brought about with this hard-won knowledge, will surely soften her toward him.”

“If she wants to give him credit,” said Christopher. “But she seemed determined to give him no praise for what he did there.”

“Victory has a way of changing one’s perspective,” said Penelope.

“It is a little too early to speak of victory,” said Christopher. “One battle is not a war.”