The Tutor (39 page)

“Dowager Lady de L’Isle asks for you to come to her,” said Molly, helping Katharine out of her boots.

“Did she mention why, Molly?”

“No, mistress.”

“I know why,” Katharine said. “She will reprimand me for my visit to Master Shakespeare’s chamber. I am no child! How this vexes me!”

A few minutes later, Katharine was standing in Matilda’s antechamber.

“Come sit, Katharine,” said Matilda. She still wore her widow’s veil in public, but in her chamber her face and head were bare. She was swaddled in a shawl, kid gloves on her hands. “I cannot seem to rid myself of a chill,” she said. “I suppose I should move around, but my bones want strength. Come sit by the fire, Katharine.”

Katharine did as she was bade. Matilda seemed in the last year to have shrunk to the size of a child.

“Katharine, Robert Smythson came to speak with me.”

Katharine’s face flushed red.

“He said he had spoken to you.”

“He has,” was all Katharine said.

“And that you heard him graciously but spoke honestly that you could not return his affections.”

“Yes.”

“So if he were to make an offer in marriage, you would decline?”

“Yes.”

“Katharine, do you know that he is a master stonemason and that in the last years he has designed and built some of the most important houses in England?”

“I suspected.”

“And do you know his business is thriving and that he is a man with considerable means?”

“I never thought of that.”

“Of course you didn’t. I am speaking frankly to you, as frankly as I have spoken to my daughter Isabel, who has today accepted young Barlow’s offer of marriage.”

“How wonderful,” said Katharine, who in truth had never heard Isabel utter one word of him. “Isabel must be very happy.”

“Isabel is sensible. She is happy in knowing that her husband’s family hails from good and noble stock, and was first knighted, as ours was, by King William when he conquered these lands.”

This was just the sort of speeching that made Katharine glad she had entered into adulthood without a mother or a father.

“Katharine, I would hope, after our talk today, that you would reconsider Mr. Smythson’s offer.”

“But he in truth did not offer . . .”

“I realize that, but he knows you well, it seems, and did not press on with his offer, for fear you would shut him out completely.”

“I will not shut him out. I am fond of him.”

“Perhaps, then, over time, you could learn to love him.”

Katharine rose. Her eyes were filling with tears. It was Will she loved, and it was with Will she wanted to be. She wanted to fling that in Matilda’s face. She was sure now she had misinterpreted Will’s staring at Ned. Katharine wanted to say to Matilda:
Will Shakespeare loves me. Will Shakespeare desires me. Will Shakespeare said I am brilliant and beautiful and clever. Will Shakespeare pulled my body to his and kissed me after we danced the volta. He undressed my hair. He said I know him better than anyone else. He said we would know each other for forty years, that this year was just the start of our bond. Will Shakespeare has asked me to move to London with him.

“Would you consider what I have said to you, Katharine? I don’t have to say, but I will, that the air has changed at Lufanwal. My dear Edward’s exile was the beginning of the end of a way of life here. Richard is still in jail. Ned has become a priest and thus forfeits his legacy. Young Henry is soon off to Rome, and it remains to be seen if he, too, will follow his cousin into the priesthood. The future of this house is, indeed, uncertain. I am old. My end will come soon.”

“No, my lady, no. Do not speak thus,” said Katharine.

The Matilda of Katharine’s childhood was strong and proud. The small woman sitting in front of Katharine seemed a parody of the towering woman who had presided over Lufanwal for so many years.

“’Tis true,” Matilda continued. “Death is no secret. ’Tis God’s will. I have this small chest for you, Katharine. Do not open it until you have returned to your chamber. I have been a jailer of a branch of Edward’s spirit. ’Twas not gracious nor kind that I kept these, and that is something I must live with and ask for God’s forgiveness and for your forgiveness until my eyes close forever on this life. I have tried to love you, but in truth my envy has most often clouded my affections. I coveted the way in which you were a rich soil for him; he could speak and write to you in ways he could not to me. He never taught me to read or to write, but showered all his learning onto you. I’ll never know why he chose you, but he did. He chose you. I thought that by holding on to these maybe I could hold on to a part of him that I was never able to grasp, but that you seemed to seize easily and naturally.” Matilda handed Katharine a wooden box with ivory inlay. “Go,” she said, “and take this with you. I am tired and cold. Think on all I have said.”

—

When Katharine returned
to her chamber, she sat on her bed and opened the box. Inside was a bundle of letters addressed to her from Edward—his seal broken. The sudden sight of his handwriting, the thick, stolid letters, brought tears to her eyes. It was as if he had entered the room and was sitting there with her. As she read, beginning with a letter that dated as far back as his journey, he came back to her in a rush of flesh and voice. Her tears dropped upon his pages. How she missed him. She had wondered why he had not written but had thought it not her place to ask if any letters had come for her. She drank his words, his descriptions of people and places. He was, she read, making the best of
his plight. He greeted each new day without regret or woe but with energy and curiosity. He had never been on a ship, never traveled out of his beloved England, and the strange customs and languages entertained and compelled him.

“Oh, Edward,” she said out loud. “I can hear you.” She wiped the tears from her face with her hands and dried her wet palms on her skirt. “Dear, dear Edward.” He must have thought her cold and unkind, for she had—thinking he had not written to her—not written to him. Katharine spent the afternoon and evening reading every word Edward had written to her. Nothing secretive or inappropriate hovered in his tone: he would have welcomed Matilda’s reading them. Katharine hoped someone had read them to Matilda. There was something about the warmth and honesty in the letters that made Katharine think of Robert Smythson. She’d never thought of it before, but there was a similarity to the timbre of their voices and the deep, clear tone with which they
spoke.

25

ou have heard my news,” said Isabel. Katharine and Isabel were sitting in Isabel’s chamber. They had their shawls around them, and their stools pulled close to the fire.

“Your mother told me, dearest.” Katharine put down her stitching and gazed at Isabel. “I recall sitting next to him at dinner on Saint Crispin’s Day. Are you pleased?”

“I am pleased that Mother is pleased,” she said.

“Is there goodness in this Nicholas Barlow? I could not bear to have you married off to a man without goodness.”

“Time, I suppose, will teach me if he has goodness. ’Tis good in the match, even if there is no goodness in him.”

They were quiet.

“I cannot imagine you not here,” Katharine said.

“I cannot imagine me not here,” Isabel said. “I will not be far away. Three hours by horse.”

“Well, I’ll drop by several times a day!”

“Mother told me of Mr. Smythson’s offer.”

“Yes, we women are like goods and chattels. Or perhaps slaves is more apt.”

“Kate, he was not offering to buy you.”

“No?”

“No. He may not be exactly of our . . . well . . . he is not . . .”

“Of our kind?”

“Well, no, but he has a business that is surely growing, Kate. That he designs those beautiful houses as well as builds them—is remarkable. He has the hands of a sculptor.”

“And the face of a rock,” added Katharine.

“Kate, have you not had your fill of smooth faces and smooth voices?”

“And smooth verses?”

“Yes.”

“I do not mean to poke fun at Mr. Smythson,” said Katharine. “He may have the face of a rock, but he has a very warm heart. He is a nice man, and in truth the mansions he builds are breathtaking.”

“And you turned him down.”

“Tell me more of Nicholas Barlow.”

“You will meet him again, for Mother is giving a small banquet in our honor.”

“And I will have a chance then to quiz this Nicholas Barlow on his goodness,” said Katharine, kissing Isabel’s cheek.

—

Back in her
own chamber, Katharine sat in her high-backed oak chair with her cloak still on and stared out the open window. The air outside was frigid, but she sat there, letting the cold seep into her skin and questioning if heaven was indeed beyond the clouds. Maybe God was finally granting her His love in the form of this love with Will, a love that only felt mutual sometimes—and it was therein that the confusion, the
canker, lay. She could not eat tonight. She could not concentrate. She was not able to keep anyone’s company. She felt weak, almost ill. Finally, she shut the window and lay down on her bed, fully clothed, with her cloak still on. She rested her head on her pillow, stared up at the ceiling and watched the shadows of her candle flame dancing on the wood. Mayhap he thought her too old, not fair enough, not rich enough, too clever. Tears filled her eyes and slid slowly down her cheeks.

She had Molly fetch Ned—he, his fellow Jesuits and Henry were to depart from Lufanwal after Candlemas.

“My dear,” Ned said when she opened the door. “My dear, you are ill, return to your bed with haste.”

“I am not ill, Ned, but ’tis true I am stricken. I have to know, Ned. I must know. You have to, if you love me, pray be honest. I will not fault you. I will understand, because he is so . . . he is so charming, so cunning. I will not fault you. I must know. Please, I beg of you . . .” Katharine, in her smock with her hair down, pulled Ned to sit next to her on the bed. She was holding him by his collar. “I beg of you . . .”

“What, my dearest? What?” he said, gently taking her hands from his collar and holding them.

“Did you . . . did he . . .” The tears were streaming down her face. “Are you with him? Have you been with him? In secret? Has he seduced you, too?”

“Who?”

“Will?”

“Will Shakespeare?”

“Yes, he.”

“No,” Ned said simply. “I barely met the man but a few days ago at the Stanleys’.

Katharine threw her arms around Ned’s neck and clung to him.

“Dearest Kate, you’re most distraught.”

“Since our return, have you been meeting with him and hiding it from me? Dear, sweet cousin, pray tell me the truth.”

“No. I swear upon the Holy Roman Bible I have not.”

There. Ned had said it. Ned had said it, but why could Katharine not believe him? What work of the devil was this: to make her doubt her cousin who had always been her solace, her peace and her home?

“’Tis better you stay apart from him,” said Ned. “You have the look of a wolf about you, my dearest, a hungry wolf. I have seen that haunted look on others, but never on you.”

“Why did he say those things to me? Why did he act thus? Why did he make me Venus to his Adonis?”

“Some men do such dalliance for sport. Some men need to play the god. Some men need others to worship them, and they will do anything and say anything for that to come to pass. ’Tis a sickness. ’Tis debauchery. They ruin lives.”

“Oh, Ned, do not leave me,” she said.

“You will survive.”

“But will you survive, dearest Ned? There are gallows everywhere.”

“’Tis for God to know. I have His work to carry out.”

“I will die if anything happens to you.”

“Kate, you will not die. You’re made of strong and sturdy stuff.”

“You are a wonder, my sweet Ned. I crave your pardon for my ill-versed questions.”

She held out her hand and he took it and kissed it. Then she reached for his cheek and tenderly touched it.

Six days, and Katharine did not see Will, nor did he send any pages. He did ask to meet with her, and she sent word through Molly that she could not at this time, for her duties at the hall crowded her. The fever of Will was beginning to lift. She could, perhaps with time, become immune to him.