The Tutor (38 page)

“Our own queen has many years on you, and they still try to marry her.”

“She is our queen,” said Katharine.

“You are scarce past thirty. I have built houses for the Countess of Shrewsbury, who married for a fourth time when she was seven and forty years of age. But I have not asked you to marry me.”

“No,” she said. “I crave your pardon . . . I . . .”

“But you are not wrong in your interpretation of my attentions,” he said, running his hand through his curls.

“Prithee sit, Mr. Smythson,” Katharine said.

“You were going out,” he said, noticing her cloak.

“I will stay a moment,” she said.

When he sat down in one of the chairs in front of the fire, his shoulders immediately went slack—how different from Will, who was so conscious of his bearing, an actor upon a stage.

“Mr. Smythson . . .” Katharine sat down opposite him. She still had Will’s pages in her hand.

“Prithee, call me Robert.”

“And you may call me Katharine. Robert, I do not know you well, but from the scant time we have spent together I feel I can speak to you honestly.”

Mr. Smythson was not looking at Katharine but at the large rough hands clasped in front of him. “Do,” he said.

“At eighteen, I was married to a man thrice my age. When I was twenty he died.”

Mr. Smythson looked up at her. His profile was sharp, and yet his face was not unpleasant, for there was something lovely and open about his large brown eyes. He waited for her to continue.

“After the death of my husband, I moved back to Lufanwal and have been here ever since. Over the years, suitors came and suitors went, and I . . . I . . .”

“Never found the right fit.”

Katharine thought of when Will pulled her to him, how it felt like a glove, but she continued, “I was a boulder that would not budge. You work with stone. You must have certain stones that do not conform to a wall, whether it be outside a house or in the very house itself.”

Mr. Smythson leaned his large frame toward her. “Miss Katharine, I am a stonemason. I cut stones, shape them to fit, that is my trade. Most stones do not conform to the contour of a wall or a stairwell or a floor naturally but need the hands of men to help them. But I would never presume to shape you—you are not stone but flesh and blood. I do not know you well but find I think of you often, perhaps too often, and that I wish to see you. I have kept myself back many a time, not let myself jump on my horse with some excuse to come to a house where I am not even at this time working. I am a busy man with a business that is, thank heavens, flourishing. I have a son with whom I spend as much time as is possible—while we are deep in the building of a house and also when we finish work for the day.

“But I know this: I know that I am in love with you. I do not know how it came to pass or why, but it is the simple truth. ’Tis no secret your people are from a much higher breed than mine. I come from generations of men who worked with their hands, first with iron, then stone. I expect my low birth bothers you and I understand that, and I do not expect you to love me or to think of me when I am out of the room, but I wanted you to know that if you ever need me or it comes to pass that you might want
to spend time with me, I am here . . . or rather there . . . or wherever I am, and I can come to you. The tragedies this house has endured are profound and very sad, and perhaps ’twas improper for me to come to you at this time with such words, but I felt I must.”

He stood. She remained sitting.

“Mr. Smythson . . .”

“Robert.”

“Robert, I thank you for your honest words. I wish I could return the sentiment but I cannot.”

“I did not expect you could. I only wanted to offer my support if ever you might need it.”

She rose and walked to the fire. “This has nothing to do with your standing,” Katharine said. She felt a rush of tears and she knew not why.

“I crave your pardon. I have upset you,” he said.

“No,” she said, wiping her eyes with the edge of her cloak. “It is just that . . .” She did not finish, but what had caught her and upset her was that no man had ever said in all her years the words, “I am in love with you,” and now Mr. Smythson had.

He pulled a cloth from his pocket and handed it to Katharine, and she again wiped her eyes. She was ashamed her dam had broken. Will had never said he was
in love
with her. He had said, “And we will love each other and continue on,” which she now understood as:
You will love me and we will continue on
,
with you loving me.

Katharine grabbed Mr. Smythson’s strong hands and held them in her small ones. “Gramercy, for all you have said. You are a brave man.”

He smiled and gently pulled his hands from hers; then he put his hand on her head and let it rest on her hair for a moment. “I must be off,” he said, lifting his hand and looking down at her. “Fare thee well.”

“Fare thee well,” she said.

He bowed, took his worn leather satchel from the floor, pulled it over his shoulder and walked out the door. Katharine did not follow him. Will
was waiting, but she sat down in front of the fire again. Her throat was tight. She felt choked and weepy. She could barely swallow. Mr. Smythson had been so kind just when she needed kindness, and he had been so warm just when she needed warmth, and he had been so loving just when she needed love. Mr. Smythson had left the door ajar, and now she studied the doorway, half hoping he would turn around and walk back through it, but he was walking away. She listened to the sound of his footsteps receding.

—

Will had proposed
his quarters. At first she thought it mad, and improper, for the house was already a gossip bowl, and the sight of her ducking in and out of Will’s lair would surely make it spill over with talk. But, nevertheless, layered in wools and covered with a hood, she walked through the January chill to Will’s door. She would make this their final meeting. She would sever their strange rope. She would let him go. She thought of Mr. Smythson’s kind words and of the artless manner with which he placed his warm hand on the top of her head.

Will’s lodgings were near the old chapel in what had been the priest’s quarters until the hunts began. Katharine sat on an oak chair next to the fire, her cloak wrapped around her. Will sat on a joint stool. He wore no doublet. His cambric shirt was open at the neck. His beard was neatly trimmed. His belongings were tidy: books in stacks, shoes and boots in a row, papers in a pile, black quills lined like soldiers on the table; his clothes, she assumed, were neatly folded in the trunk. It was as if he had invited her into his home in Stratford, when his wife and children were out, and had brought her into his bedchamber. She did not know where to look. There was something inappropriate but utterly compelling about finding herself sitting in this small space with him.

“How fares my dear Kate?” he asked.

The way he said her name made her heart go soft. She wanted to fling
herself in his arms, bury her head in his shoulder. She now wondered what he had written in the letters she had thrown into the fire.

As if guessing her thoughts, he said, “All my letters to you have gone unanswered.”

“’Tis all a shock,” Katharine said, avoiding his eyes.

“The dreadful news thrusts the sorrows of this house to the zenith. My deepest sympathies. I’ve spoken with the two older sons, Henry and Thomas—they seem as deer cornered in a hunt.” Will took a package wrapped in gray paper from his table and handed it to Katharine. “For the New Year’s Day past,” he said. “Not gloves.” He smiled.

An image of Lady Strange’s peacock gloves glittering across the dance floor flashed in front of Katharine. She opened the package and found two books. The first book was of buttery kidskin; embossed gold vined up its spine. Inside was a page with: the title,
The Countesse of Pembroke’s Arcadia
;
the author, “written by Sir Philippe Sidnei”; the family crest; and “London, printed for William Ponsonbie—
Anno Domini
, 1590.” In a long and loving inscription to his sister Mary, the Countess of Pembroke of the title, the poet wrote:

I could well find in my harte, to cast out in some desert of forgetfulnes this child, which I am loath to father. But you desired me to doo it, and your desire, to my hart is an absolute commandement. Now, it is done onelie for you, onelie to you: if you keepe it to your selfe, or to such friendes . . .

She read on. A line resonated toward the end of his dedication: “You will continue to love the writer, who doth exceedinglie love you . . .” Was Will, by giving this to her, trying to convey what perhaps he could not say himself?

“Your beloved Sir Philip,” said Will, “fresh from the London book-stalls.”

“Gramercy,” said Kate, opening the second book, entitled
The Arte of English Poesie
by George Puttenham.

“I gave my mother a New Year’s gift, a hat of velvet, silk and feathers bought at the milliner’s in the village here, a hat of elegance and taste.”

Kate wondered why Will was telling her this.

“She did not fancy it at all,” he said.

“Did she say so?”

“No. She did not utter a word, but her eyes were icy and the manner in which she pursed her lips spoke of her distaste. I went out directly and bought her a shawl.”

“Did she fancy that?”

“Her eyes were warmer. It gives me great pleasure to give gifts, but my mother is particular. I feared you’d taken ill when you didn’t respond to my letters yesterday, but then your sonnet arrived,” he said. “I thought your sonnet quite good.”

Katharine placed the two books on the table in front of her and waited for Will to continue, for him to comment if not on the whole sonnet, at least on some of her lines.

“Read what Puttenham has to say about our English language,” was all he said, tapping the book with his finger.

Katharine nodded. In truth, she cared little about her sonnet at this moment. Writing served her—from last night until this morn—as a raft onto which she clung so she would not drown. She did not want to ask Will about her poetry; she wanted to ask him why he did not try to find her at the Stanleys’ during the dancing. Why? Where was he that night? And what about his circling of Ned as a hawk does its prey? What was that? She wanted to ask him all these things, but the words were strangled and did not issue from her mouth.

“My pace has been slow with the poem.” He corralled her with his eyes. “I have in truth not written a word these last weeks.”

He cannot write without me, Katharine thought.

She was aware of his bed, of how close their bodies were in the small chamber.

“’Tis a pity,” she said. “You were marking such fine speed. You were on fire.”

“The festivities at the Stanleys’ stalled what heretofore was in motion,” he said.

How long had Will lodged at Lathom House? While Katharine had pictured him steady at his verse in Warwickshire with his family swarming around him, he’d been but several leagues from her, partaking of the Stanleys’ abundant hospitality.

“You seemed to have found your stride when writing at your home at Christmastide, even with a house in merriment,” she said. “Here, where solitude reigns, you should be able to advance your stanzas—unless you are off again with Lord Strange’s Men. I’ve brought the sheets you sent from Stratford. I’ve marked them.”

He took his verse from her. “I filled in at Lathom, one of their regulars had taken ill. Did you enjoy
Faire Em
? Was my skill what you expected?” he asked.

She waited for him to say something, anything, about Ned. “You are well skilled, an excellent player,” she said finally.

The fire crackled while he read what she had written.

“A brilliant suggestion—to use Ovid’s tale of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus as a guide.” He put the pages down and added wood to the fire. Katharine waited—for what, she was not certain. He leaned against the table, gazing at her. Minutes passed. Then he said, “Full gently now she takes him by the hand. A lily prison’d in a jail of snow . . .”

“Our Venus might beseech him once again.” Katharine did not want to involve herself in his lines, yet she couldn’t stop herself.

“Once more the engine of her thoughts begins,” he said, smiling.

The words were on the tip of Katharine’s lips: she knew she could without hesitation become Venus’s tongue. She pretended she had to
think, that it took time. “Would thou wert as I am, and I a man, my heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound . . .” Katharine offered slowly. “For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee, though nothing but my body’s baine would cure thee.”

What am I doing? Katharine asked herself.

“She wants something out of him, that he can’t give her,” Will continued. “He wants his horse back and he wants her to let go of his hand and he wants her to leave him alone . . .”

“Then she challenges him to act more like his steed, to take advantage when presented with joy, to learn to love,” said Katharine.

“Yes, yes,” said Will, pacing. “And then our fair Adonis launches into scorn. ‘I know not love,’ he says, ‘nor will not know it, unless it be a boar, and then I chase it.’”

Katharine nodded.

Will bowed. “’Tis like the old times, Kate!” he said. He leaned down to her, cupped her burning cheeks in his hands, and continued: “’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it: my love to love is love but to disgrace it, for I have heard, it is a life in death, that laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.” He let go of her cheeks, walked back to his table, dipped his quill and, still standing, started writing.

Katharine had been so resolute, but now her moat had dried up and her wall had fallen. She stood. There was an old legend that witches could enchant furniture, and now Katharine wondered if the joint stool in front of her, still warm from Will, had indeed cast a spell.

“I must go,” she said.

He turned to her. “I will write all through the night and send you pages and—”

She was quickly out the door. When she reached her chamber, Molly was there.