“Wear your flower,” she said. “And if Her Grace asks, tell her I gave it to you.”
“Oh, thank you, Lady Brereton,” I cried. “That is kind of you.”
And so I was able to wear my French fennel.
The flower was a beginning. There were other things I coveted—silks … velvets, which could be made into gowns. Francis liked me to look well. He told me he had earned money when he was away from the country and could buy these things for me.
I said: “Only on the understanding that, when I have some money, I shall pay you back.”
I studiously made an account of all he spent on me and called it my debt to him.
Oh, they were happy days! I wondered how I had existed without Francis.
One day he said: “We shall plight our troth, for in time we shall be married. What say you?”
I replied: “There is nothing I want more!”
“Then ’tis done. You are my wife, I your husband. So, wife, you must call me husband.”
“But we are not that yet.”
“We are now troth-plighted, and that means that I am yours and you are mine.”
“If my grandmother knew … if she told my father … the Duke … perhaps they might seek to harm you.”
“Am I not a Howard? Am I not of that illustrious family? The only thing I lack is fortune. I shall make my fortune and then, sweet Katherine, all will be well. But in the meantime, you and I are man and wife.”
He kissed me with a yearning passion. I returned his kisses. I told myself that this was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me.
Dorothy appeared suddenly, as some of the women had a habit of doing. I wondered how much she had overheard.
“You are very familiar with Mistress Howard, Master Derham,” she said with a touch of severity which astonished me, for they all knew what went on in the Long Room and were indeed part of it.
Francis replied: “Who should hinder a man from kissing his wife?”
“Is that so then?” asked Dorothy.
“We have plighted our troth.”
“So, you are determined to have Mistress Howard?”
“By the saints!” retorted Francis. “You could guess twice and guess worse.”
Dorothy smirked. ‘Well, ’tis no great surprise, I grant you.”
Then she left us and went off—I am sure to tell her friends what she had seen and heard.
So they knew now. Francis used to come at night. He would bring strawberries and apples and wine—anything which he thought I might fancy. We would spread it out on my bed and we would feast. After that we would lie in the bed together.
This was different from the time with Manox. I wished I could remove all memory of that man from my mind. What I had experienced with him was distasteful now, and I deeply wished it had never happened. But what was the use in trying to change something which is already there? The only resort is to force oneself to forget.
So now I thought of Francis only. I need have no qualms. I was free to indulge in any exciting experience. Were we not troth-plighted?
Francis said: “Forget not, you are my wife.”
So I remembered.
Very occasionally, I saw Manox. He would look at me, half-pleading, half-angry Sometimes I thought he hated me because I would not look at him. The fact was that I saw him as I never had before. He was conceited; he believed himself irresistible; that was why he could not forgive me for rejecting him.
I know now that he was the one who betrayed us to the Duchess, for surely none of the girls or the young men who came to the Long Room on those nights would have done so.
However, my grandmother received a note suggesting that, if she knew what took place in the Long Room on many nights, she would not approve of it.
As a result, one of the older women received a summons to attend the Duchess. Her name was Baskerville, I think.
She came back with a wry face.
“Someone has betrayed us,” she said. “The doors to the Long Room are to be locked at night, and the keys taken to Her Grace’s apartments where they will remain during the night, and at daybreak one of her attendants will come and unlock the doors.”
We were all alarmed to realize that the Duchess must have an inkling of what was happening.
For about a week we were disconcerted. Also, we missed our merry evenings. There was silence throughout the Long Room, broken only by complaints about how dull it had become.
And then one night, after we were all in bed, the door was opened suddenly and one of the Duchess’s waiting women was there. She stood very still, holding up the keys and shaking them. Then she tiptoed into the room in a mocking manner.
She said: “I liked not to think of you naughty girls missing your fun. Listen. Tell your gallants that they may return, but they must be very careful. I have unlocked the door and shall take the key back to Her Grace’s apartments. In the morning, I shall come again with the key, but there will be no unlocking of the door because the door will have remained unlocked throughout the night. You must make sure that before I come your friends have left for where they should rightly be.”
Then she sat on one of the beds and we all clustered round her and there was much merriment.
After that it was as it had been before—except that now we knew that the Duchess had been aware of what was happening, and it might have occurred to her that we could find a way of deceiving her—which, of course, we had.
Francis loved to give me presents. He was very anxious to make a fortune. He wanted to take me away with him. He often talked of sailing the seas, and I guessed that that was what he did during his absences. He had returned with money—far more than he could have earned as a pensioner in the Duke’s household, but still not the fortune he must have.
He was impatient. He wanted to marry me in truth. He knew that the Duke would never accept him as a suitor for his niece as he was; but if he were a rich man, his remote connection with the Howard family might carry him through.
So he would go away. It should only be for a short trip. He would earn money and come back. I did not want him to go—nor did he want to, but he was convinced that he must.
The Duchess was becoming wary. Neither of us could imagine what would happen if she knew how it was between us. We were troth-plighted and that was sacred to us, for no one could say we were not man and wife.
The Duke would doubtless have Francis removed. Who could say how? Taken to the Tower on some pretext, there to disappear, as so many had who had offended the great? And if we were caught by the Duchess and betrayed to the Duke, it would be the end of our hopes. And what would happen to me? Sent into a nunnery? Married to someone I should hate? It could be one of many things. However, once Francis was a man of great fortune, they would be ready to welcome him as a member of the great Howard family … which he undoubtedly was.
So, much as I disliked the idea of his going, he had made me see the necessity of it.
I was desolate, but he said I must not be, for he would be back ere long with the fortune which would make the way clear for us.
He already had one hundred pounds, and he would leave the money with me. I should keep it safe, for it was the foundation of our fortune. And if he did not return, that money should be mine.
Then he went away.
The days seemed long and the nights wearisome without him. I put the hundred pounds in a bag which I determined should always be with me. I kept it under my pillow at night and attached it to my waistband in the day, but it was too bulky for that, and I had to find another place for it. I had little privacy; but I did have a drawer in which I could put some of my clothes. I sewed the money up in the pocket of a petticoat and every day I took it out to make sure it was there.