Then Jennet crossed herself suddenly and said in a hollow voice: “God help us all. That good lady’s place … my little Mistress Linnet’s place … be took by …” Then she looked over her shoulder and after a long pause she murmured, “by … by another.”
Like everyone else, Jennet was afraid of my stepmother. I wondered about my father. His eyes followed her wherever she was. I heard one of the servants say: “He be spellbound.”
Now and then I found her dark eyes fixed on me. I don’t think she understood me. She was expecting me to be resentful towards her for taking my mother’s place; stepmothers were not generally liked by the children of their predecessors. But I knew that hating her could not bring my mother back. She was Senara’s mother and Senara thought her wonderful. My misery did not take the form of wanting to blame someone. When she understood this she ignored me, and I was glad of that. She was such a strange woman. Although she had never shown affection for Senara, she was anxious for her future. She made sure that Master Eller made an educated lady of her; and she engaged a young man to teach us dancing and singing. His name was Richard Gravel and we called him Dickon. He played the lute and the virginals in such a manner as to raise the spirits or bring tears and make the heart melt; and he could dance so beautifully that when he performed it was impossible to take one’s eyes from him. Senara was enraptured by him and was eager to excel at both music and dancing. We learned country dances, morris dancing, but chiefly those which would be performed at balls and banquets. It occurred to me that my stepmother wished to make a great lady of her daughter and because I was her companion I shared in the tuition too. It vaguely entered my mind that she did not believe Senara would be in the country all her life. This training was to make a court lady of her.
But we were far from the court. Deep in my mind was the knowledge that if my stepmother desired it, so would it be. I had heard one of the servants mention that she had “The Powers”. I had never heard the expression before but I understood immediately what she meant.
But it is surprising how very quickly young people can adjust themselves to situations. Before the year was out my home no longer seemed a strange place; the extraordinary had become commonplace. It was not that I forgot my mother; I should never do that. I used to go to the burial ground and put flowers on her grave; and because it seemed unfair to leave out those other two, I put flowers on them.
There were of course several long-dead Casvellyns in the burial grounds, but these three graves were together and I was sorry for my father’s first wife, Melanie, and the unknown sailor. To set my mother’s apart I planted a rosemary bush on hers, because rosemary is for remembrance. When I planted that tree the notion came to me that my mother was not completely lost to me; she was close to me at all times and particularly so when I needed her help. Whatever the delights of heaven, she would never leave me entirely alone. I sensed her presence watching over me, guarding me from evil. It was a comforting thought and once it had come to me, it stayed with me and I began to be happy again.
Life settled down to a new pattern. Lessons with Master Eller and singing and dancing with Dickon took up a great deal of our time. We rode with the grooms; we visited Lyon Court although my grandmother never came to us, and she was never pressed to do so. I believed that she did not want to be in a household where my mother had lived, nor did she wish to see my father’s third wife. But I was encouraged to go to her whenever I wished and when I went Senara accompanied me. It was inconceivable to either of us that we should be parted. We quarrelled occasionally but we both knew that those differences would be quickly settled. We were very different in temperament. I was quiet, rather serious, not easily roused to anger and enjoyed looking after people. Senara was impatient with me sometimes, although she liked me to look after her. She was full of life, she hated lessons. Master Eller despaired of her; but she played the virginals and the lute with passion and flair; she could sing prettily and she danced so gracefully that it was a great joy to watch her. I was serious and loved books; and she would be jealous of my reading. Is that more interesting than talking to me? she would demand. I would truthfully answer that it was, whereupon she would endeavour to tear the book from my hands. Then I would try to interest her in what I read but her attention soon strayed. In spite of these differences we were very happy in each other’s company.
And so the time passed.
When I was thirteen years old the Queen died. I was staying with my grandparents at the time. It was March of the year 1603. I remember feeling depressed, not so much because the Queen was dead but because the realization was brought home to me that my grandparents were old and if the Queen who had seemed immortal should die, so could they. My great-grandmother Damask, who was named after the rose, had died at a great age just after my mother had. It was a double blow for my poor grandmother, for although she saw little of her own mother, she being in London, there were the same kind of ties between them as there had been between my mother and hers.
Death was in the air. “’Tis something as don’t come singly,” said Jennet prophetically.
My grandfather, the once lusty sea captain, no longer went to sea. He must have been over seventy years old, for my grandmother was sixty-three. He used to sit on the Hoe for hours looking out to sea, I suppose dreaming of the days of adventure. He walked with a stick because one of his legs was stiffening and gave him a certain amount of pain. He still roared about the house and my grandmother still berated him, but I felt they behaved as they did not because they felt any animosity towards each other but because they wanted to go on as they always had. Uncles Carlos and Jacko were at Lyon Court often when they were not at sea and they would sit with their father and talk of their latest exploits. They were devoted to him. Edwina was often at Lyon Court too; and her sons with her. Damask was going to marry one of the captains in the Trading Company. It was with a certain sadness that I realized how everything was changing—a little here, a little there, until the entire picture was different.
On the day the Queen died we sat at table in the great hall because there were guests in the house. There were the parents of the young man Damask was to marry and he was there too, and there were several others who worked for the Trading Company.
The talk was naturally all of the Queen: what a great reign it had been and that her death was sure to mean changes. She had been ailing for some time and we should have been prepared, but we had all thought she would continue to reign over us for ever. All my life people had talked of the Queen as they might have talked of the Earth. It was impossible to imagine England without her.
My grandfather adored her. To him she was the symbol of England. She had once sent for him to go to London and he had sailed up the Thames and had gone to Greenwich where she most graciously received him. It was before the defeat of the Armada and she had been fully aware of how useful men such as Jake Pennlyon could be to her. She had complimented him on his exploits and had hinted that she looked to him to go on robbing Spaniards of their treasure and bringing it home and making sure that a goodly proportion of it made its way into the nation’s purse, while at the same time she let the Spaniards believe that she was admonishing her pirate seamen. That had appealed to my grandfather. He had constantly declared he would serve her with his life.
Now she was dead. That proud spirit was no more. We had always listened avidly to the stories about her; how she was so vain that with her painted cheeks and wigs she had believed the courtiers who had told her she was the most beautiful woman on earth (had she really, or had she appeared to in order to attempt to convince them that she was?); how she had loved the Earl of Essex yet had agreed to his execution; how right to the very end she had expected men to fall in love with her and thought them traitors if they did not, how furious she had always been when they married or took mistresses although she had no intention of giving up one small bit of her sovereignty by marriage; how she had three hundred dresses in her wardrobe, how choleric she was, how calm and shrewd, how cruel, how kind she could be. Whatever she was, she was a great Queen.