Frances lifted her hand to strike the woman, but thought better of it. Her face crumpled suddenly and she said: “Jennet, I’m afraid that if I stay here too long, I shall lose him.”
Jennet nodded.
“You think so, do you?” burst out Frances. “What right have you to think? What do you know about it?”
“I have seen, have I not, my lady? But why do you despair? You saw Dr. Forman and Mrs. Turner before you left Court.”
A worried frown appeared on Frances’s brow. “I wish they were nearer, Jennet. I wish I could talk to them.”
“You have the powders with you?”
“Yes, but how administer them?”
“It would have been easier if you had allowed him to live with you.”
Frances shivered. “Never. If I did I believe that would be the end. My Lord Rochester would have finished with me then.”
“Did he say so?”
“He hinted it. Jennet, we’ve got to find a way. We’ve got to get out of here. I feel shut in … a prisoner. I was meant to be free. I can’t breathe here.”
“We’ll have to see,” said Jennet.
Essex almost wished that he had not returned to Chartley. Here it was much more difficult to keep secret the extraordinary state of his marital affairs. It was embarrassing for all his retainers to know that he was so distasteful to his wife that she refused to live with him as his wife. He was very young, being not much over twenty, and had had very little experience of women. Frances, two years his junior, was knowledgeable in comparison; she understood him while she bewildered him.
Had he been a stronger-willed man he might have forced his way into her apartments, in order to assure her that he was the master, but his nature was too gentle for him to adopt this method and he hoped he could persuade her to act reasonably.
He even made excuses for her; she was innocent; she was unprepared for marriage and viewed it with distaste. She was after all very young; she would grow up in time; then she would be sorry for all the trouble she had caused him.
The entire neighborhood was aware of the strange happenings inside the castle. The Countess was never seen out of doors. She refused to leave her apartments; her doors were always locked; though he believed that in the night, accompanied by Jennet, she walked about the castle and in the grounds.
Jennet was always with her; and the two Chartley maids, Elizabeth Raye and Catharine Dardenell, waited on her. They were regarded with great respect by the rest of the servants whom they told that the Countess was in truth a sweet lady, and so lovely to look at that she must be good. She had shown kindness to both Elizabeth and Catharine; and her own maid, Jennet, whom she had brought with her, was devoted to her. Catharine and Elizabeth were beginning to believe that the fault might lie with the Earl.
Essex spent a great deal of time brooding over the situation; and he liked to escape from the castle and often walked for miles trying to think of some solution.
He could, of course, allow her to return to Court and leave her alone; that was what she wanted; and she was ready to be his good friend if he would agree to it. But he was stubborn on one point; she was his wife. Ever since their marriage he had dreamed of coming home to her, because he had carried with him, all the time he had been abroad, a memory of that lovely young girl to whom he had been married. Having built up an ideal of what their life together would be, he could not accept this situation. He would not give up his dream so easily.
As he walked alone, deep in thought, he heard a cry for help which came from the direction of a swiftly running river. He was sharply brought out of melancholy reverie and, turning toward the direction from which the cry had come, he recognized his steward, Wingfield.
“Wingfield,” he called. “What’s wrong?”
Before Wingfield could answer he saw for himself; a man was wading out of the river supporting a young woman whom he had clearly rescued.
The Earl ran to the scene and helped the two men take the woman—who was one of the servants—back to the castle.
It was an hour or so later when Essex summoned Wingfield, with the man who had rescued the girl, to his apartments.
Wingfield introduced this man as Arthur Wilson, whom he had invited to the castle for a short stay. Arthur Wilson immediately spoke up for himself.
“Having fallen on hard times, my lord, I seized this opportunity to enjoy the hospitality of Mr. Wingfield in exchange for certain services.”
“It is fortunate for that poor girl that you were here,” said the Earl; and noticing that Wilson was a man of education he invited him to drink a glass of wine with him.
When the wine had been brought and they were alone together, Wilson told the Earl something of his history.
“Every since I was taught to read and write, my lord,” said Wilson, “I have never stopped doing either. I was at one time clerk to Sir Henry Spiller in the Exchequer office, but I was dismissed.”
“For some offense?”
“The inability to remain on friendly terms with people in a superior position to my own, my lord.”
Essex laughed. He had taken a great liking to this man and he was particularly pleased to have been diverted from his own unpleasant thoughts.
“I thought,” went on Wilson, “that I could live by writing poetry. That was a fallacy.”
“You must show me some of your work.”
“If your lordship would be interested.”
“Tell me what happened when you left the Exchequer office.”
“I lived in London writing poetry until my money was almost at an end. Then fortunately Wingfield appeared and suggested a short respite here at Chartley.”
“I might offer you a permanent post here. If I did so, would you accept it?”
A faint color came into Wilson’s face. “My lord,” he murmured, “you are generous beyond my hopes.”
Friendship had been born in that moment.
Arthur Wilson quickly slipped into his place at Chartley. He was the Earl’s gentleman-in-waiting, which meant that he accompanied him on his rides round the estate, hunting or any other such expedition; thus he was constantly in the Earl’s company. In a very short time he had become his most confidential servant, and because it so concerned his master, Wilson took a great interest in his relationship with the Countess.
Being such a partisan of the Earl, he was highly critical of Frances. He did not share his master’s view of her innocence, and he determined to watch the situation very carefully, without letting anyone know he did so.
Every night when he retired to his apartment he wrote in his diary an account of the day’s happenings and the affairs of the Earl and his wife inevitably figured largely in this. He found himself writing glowing descriptions of the Earl’s extraordinary patience and goodness to this woman who was behaving so badly toward him. “The mild and courteous Earl is being tried too sorely,” he wrote.
He began to wonder what dark schemes that woman concocted in the apartment from which she rarely stirred. It was unnatural, unhealthy. There she lived with that woman she had brought with her—allowing only Elizabeth Raye and Catharine Dardenell into the apartment. What were they plotting? If it were harm to the Earl, Wilson was going to be there to prevent it.
He was watching.
“Catharine, my child,” said Frances, “what pretty hair you have.”
“You’ll make the creature vain, my lady,” said Elizabeth Raye. “She’s conceited enough since Will Carrick has had his eye on her.”
“So Will Carrick admires you, Catharine. I can understand that well.”
Catharine simpered. She could not understand why some of the servants were so suspicious of the Countess, when she had always been so gracious to her and Elizabeth. She was so interested in them; and she had more or less promised that when Elizabeth’s young man was ready to marry her, she, the Countess would see that she had a good wedding. A generous lady, a good mistress; and if there was anything wrong between the Earl and Countess, she for one—and she knew Elizabeth felt the same—was ready to put the blame on the Earl.