THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL, KNOWN simply as “Paul’s” to the native Londoner, did not present the sort of quietly spiritual surroundings that Smythe had learned to associate with church during his boyhood in the country. Like the city over which it loomed magnificently, Paul’s was a curious amalgamation not only of architectural styles, but of the spiritual and the temporal as well, the exhalted simultaneously sharing space with the debased.
Surrounded by a stone wall, the churchyard of St. Paul’s was a bustling place of business, full of crowded market and book stalls past which Smythe wound his way as he entered through one of the six gates leading into the enclosure. Within the courtyard, to the northeast, stood Paul’s Cross, which always made him think of a miniature tower with its Norman-styled wooden cross atop a conical lead roof over an open pulpit built atop stone steps. Here, outdoor services were held at noon on Sundays, and important proclamations were read out to the citizenry. In the northwest corner of the yard stood the Bishop’s Palace, near the college of canons and several small chapels. Here, too, could be found Paul’s School, and the bell tower and the chapter house, incongruously elegant and solid compared to the hodgepodge of crudely fashioned merchant stalls thrown up all around the noisy churchyard.
The interior of St. Paul ’s, much to Smythe’s surprise the first time he had seen it, was no less a bustling place of business than the cacophonous outer churchyard. The middle aisle of the Norman nave was known popularly as “Paul’s Walk,” and merchants as well as other, less desirable sorts routinely plied their trades there, even while services were being conducted, so that the choir frequently had to compete with the shouts of sellers hawking their various wares, like the Biblical moneylenders in the temple, whose spiritual if not lineal descendants also could be found doing a brisk business in Paul’s Walk, counting out their coins upon the fonts.
Each supporting column in the cathedral was known for a type of business that could be transacted there. Various handwritten or printed bills were posted on the columns, people looking for work or else advertising one service or another. Smythe passed one column around which several lawyers were meeting with their clients or else negotiating with roisterers and layabouts who sold their honor for a shilling or two to bear false witness against someone in a case. Nearby, an ale seller had set up several small casks beside another column and was offering hardened leather drinking horns to passersby to taste his wares. Beside him, at another column, loaves of fresh baked bread were being sold, and the next column over was a place for buying books and broadsheets. Nearby, small portraits of the city’s aristocracy were being sold, including, of course, all the fashionable courtiers and Her Royal Majesty, Elizabeth the Virgin Queen.
Smythe passed several small tables made of wooden planks placed atop empty wine casks where tailors sold their wares, and further on, men and boys looking for work vied for the attention of prospective employers, who in turn were being distracted by the prostitutes parading up and down the aisle of the cathedral, meeting every strolling gallant’s eye with a bold gaze, a bawdy comment, a hipshot and a wink.
Over the echoing din, Smythe heard the sharp, staccato sounds of hoofbeats on the cathedral floor and quickly moved aside as a cloaked rider in a rakish hat went trotting past him down the center of the aisle, sword swinging at his side. Out for a casual morning canter through the house of God to look over the whores, thought Smythe. While he was certainly no papist, nor especially religious one way or another, Smythe could not help but think that the Dissolution over which the queen’s father, King Henry VIII, had presided had become truly dissolute, indeed. He did not think that he would ever grow fully accustomed to the way that things were done in London.
“Tuck! Over here!”
He turned towards the familiar voice, smiling when he saw Elizabeth waving to him. She was dressed in a long, voluminous, hooded cloak of green velvet that stood out from her body where her whalebone farthingale held her skirts out from her waist, making her seem to glide across the floor as she approached, and she held before her face on a slim rod a fashionable mask of green brocade and feathers, as many ladies did when they went out in public, especially if unescorted. But mask or no mask, Smythe would know her anywhere. Each time he saw her, he was reminded of the first time they had met, and how she had struck him nearly speechless with her beauty.
It had been at the Theatre, shortly after he had started working there with Will, and she had arrived in Sir Anthony Gresham’s coach. Smythe had not known whose coach it was, only that it bore the same crest upon its doors as the coach that nearly ran them down on a country road while he and Will were on their way to London. In the heat of his anger, Smythe had forgotten himself completely as he ran up to the coach and threw open its door, fully intent on dragging out its occupant and thrashing him, gentleman or not, only to be brought up short at the sight of Elizabeth sitting there alone. She had taken his breath away, and Smythe found that familiarity had not diminished in the least the effect she had upon him.
She was nineteen, the same age as he, with pale blond hair, fair skin, and eyes so blue they almost seemed to glow. She was easily the most beautiful woman Smythe had ever seen, and he could scarcely believe that she was still unmarried, despite all her father’s efforts to secure a husband for her. She was stunningly attractive, with a prominent, wealthy merchant for a father, and it seemed as if there would have been no shortage of eager suitors wanting to take her for a wife. However, anxious as he may have been to get his daughter married off, Henry Darcie would not accept just any suitor. In order to be suitable, a suitor for Elizabeth ’s hand in marriage had to be a gentleman, and preferably a titled one who could serve Darcie’s desire for advancement. That alone narrowed down the field considerably, but Elizabeth herself narrowed it down still further.
For one thing, she was tall for a woman, though not as tall as Smythe, who stood over six feet, and most gentlemen who were conscious of appearances-and what gentleman was not?-would not wish to have a wife who towered over them. For another, she was rather willful and independent-some would say spoiled, though Smythe did not find her so-qualities generally far less desirable in a gentleman’s wife than compliance and amiability. And then there was the matter of her age, which could give a prospective suitor pause.
With most young women being betrothed at eleven or twelve and married at fourteen or fifteen, unmarried women of seventeen or eighteen were often considered to be approaching spinsterhood, especially if they came from a good family. And for prospective suitors, aside from the obvious desirability of a more youthful maiden, there was also the lingering question of why Elizabeth was still unmarried at nineteen. A man of position had to wonder what could be wrong with her that she was still unmarried, despite her dowry and her beauty. Immediately suspect would be her disposition. No gentleman of means and social prominence wanted to be married to a shrew.
For her part, Elizabeth did not hesitate to exploit such masculine concerns, for the truth was, as Smythe knew, she had no great desire to be married, unless it were for love. Even then, she had her reservations, especially after the near disaster of her betrothal to Sir Anthony Gresham, which at least for the present had cured Henry Darcie of his desire to see his daughter quickly married off. But if he had become more cautious concerning potential suitors for his daughter, Henry Darcie had become no less so concerning Smythe’s involvement with her.
While he was grateful for the service Smythe had performed in saving his daughter from a terrible fate and himself from playing an unwitting part in a devilish foreign plot against the realm, which could easily have destroyed all hope of his advancement, Darcie was nevertheless not so grateful as to lose all sight of propriety, so Smythe and Elizabeth had to arrange to see each other on the sly.
“ Elizabeth!” Smythe said, taking her hand in his and raising it gently to his lips.
“I have missed you,” she said in that forthright manner that he found so absolutely charming, lowering her mask so he could see her lovely face.
“And I you,” he replied. “I was so glad to get your message. I trust that nothing is amiss? Your family is well?”
“All is well at home,” she said. “ ‘Twas kind of you to ask about them, as they do not inquire about you.” She smiled, mischievously. “You have heard about the wedding of Godfrey Middleton’s eldest daughter, Catherine?”
He nodded. “I have. The Queen’s Men have an engagement to entertain the wedding party with the performance of a play.”
She gazed at him anxiously. “I know. So then… you are going to be there?”
“Yes, I shall.” He frowned. “Why? Are you not coming?”
“Of course I will be there,” Elizabeth replied. She took his arm and they started walking slowly down the aisle, past the busy market stalls. “I am to be the maid of honor to the bride. Catherine Middleton is my very good friend. But the last time that you and I spoke, Tuck, you seemed uncertain about your standing with the company and I did not know if things had changed for you since then.”
“Well, they have not dismissed me from their service yet, if that is what you mean,” Smythe said. “For all of my appalling lack of talent, it appears I am still useful to them, albeit mostly in roles that do not require my presence on the stage.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know, I do not think that you are nearly so inept as you portray yourself.”
“There is an entire company of players who would give you a good argument upon that score,” said Smythe, with a self-deprecating grin. “And as my Uncle Thomas used to say, ‘ ‘Tis a wise man who knows his limitations.’ I am well aware of mine, Elizabeth, for better or for worse.”
“Then why do you persist in your desire to be a player? You told me once that you had learned the craft of smithing from your uncle, and that he had also taught you how to forge fine blades. Both pursuits are honorable trades. Why, a good armorer could, with the right patronage, achieve a reputation and advance himself into the gentry. That would not be out of your reach, you know. My father is already indebted to you, as is Sir William. Both men, I am quite certain, would be more than willing to assist you if you wanted to set up in trade. And if you were to become a gentleman, why then, Father could have no possible objection to our seeing one another.”
“ Elizabeth,” said Smythe, squeezing her arm gently, “your father has objected to more than one gentleman already. And aside from that, becoming a gentleman does not always solve one’s problems. My father is a gentleman, with his own escutcheon, for all the good that it has done him.”
She stood and stared at him, startled. “What! But you have never told me this!”
He merely shrugged. “I saw no reason to make mention of it.”
“No reason! No reason, indeed! You mean to tell me that you come from a good family? That your father is a gentleman, a country squire, and you came to London to become an ostler?” She stared at him with disbelief.
“I came to London to become a player.”
“Well, you were an ostler when we met and, in any event, a player is not much better than an ostler in my father’s eyes. But do not try to change the subject! Why did you not tell me?”
“Because I do not see what difference it could possibly have made,” said Smythe.
“To me, none,” Elizabeth replied, “but ‘twould have made a world of difference to my father!”
“Methinks not,” said Smythe. “ ‘Twould only have made matters worse, if your father knew the truth of it.”
“Whatever do you mean? What truth?”
“My father is a very vain and foolish man,” said Smythe, without any trace of bitterness or rancor. “I know ‘tis disrespectful to speak so of one’s parent, but if it makes me a bad son to speak the truth, so be it, then. The truth is that my father wanted so to be a gentle-man, to have an escutcheon of his own that he could blazon upon the windows and the mantle and the entryway, embroider upon the blue coats of his servants and gild upon his coach, that he spent a goodly portion of his inheritance in currying favor and paying bribes and buying influence. In time, and at no little cost, he was able to achieve his goal and was eventually granted his escutcheon by the heralds, which he then proceeded to affix to everything you could imagine, from his pewter cups to his gauntlets and his handkerchiefs of Flemish lawn and sarcenet. Meanwhile, my Uncle Thomas, to whom I had been sent for rearing, had no such lofty ambitions or pretensions. Even if he had, he could ill afford them, for ‘twas my father as the eldest who had been favored in the will.”
“And you mean to say he never helped your uncle?” asked Elizabeth.
“That matter was never formally discussed with me, but I am as certain that my uncle never asked as I am that my father never offered,” Smythe replied. “Who is to say but that had my father raised me, instead of Uncle Thomas, then perhaps I might have turned out more like him, so I am grateful that my uncle was much more of a father to me than the man whose name I bear.”
“But it nevertheless is the name of a gentleman,” Elizabeth said.
“Aye, a gentleman who was not satisfied with having achieved the rank that he had bought so dearly and instead newly set his sights upon a knighthood. To which end, he spent himself very nearly into debtors’ prison. He is now little better than a pauper, and the truth is I rather doubt your father would find very much about him of which he could approve.”
“For all that they seem to have so much in common,” Elizabeth said, wryly, referring to her father’s own considerable social ambitions. “Oh, but Tuck, why did you never tell me this?”
“As I have said, I saw no reason for it. My father is my father, for better or for worse, as I am myself. I have no part of his accomplishments or failures. I prefer to be judged on my own merits, or the lack of them, whichever the case may be. And ‘twas never my desire to be like my father, or my Uncle Thomas, for that matter, for all of the respect and love I bear him. Toiling at a forge is hard and honest work, good work, and I believe I am an able craftsman, but the truth is that it has never been my passion. Ever since I saw my first play acted out upon a tavern stage, I have wanted to become a player. ‘Tis all I ever wanted. Nothing more.”
“And your father did not approve, of course,” Elizabeth said, nodding with understanding.
“Aye, he did not. He stormed and thundered, threatened to disown me, but I would not give up my dream, and in the end, when he had squandered what was left of his inheritance-and mine-I realized at last that there was nothing left to hold me, and so I left home and came to London to pursue my dream. Perhaps I am as vain and foolish in that as my father was in his pursuit of social position and a knighthood, so who am I to judge him?”
Elizabeth smiled and placed her hand upon his as he held her arm. “I would not call you a bad son,” she said, softy. “I think you are a far better one than he deserves.”
“Well, that is neither here nor there,” said Smythe, a bit uncomfortably, though it felt wonderful to hear that from her. “The point is, whatever I am to make of myself, I must do it by myself.”
“I understand how you must feel,” she said, after a moment’s pause, “but I do not think I can agree.”
“Indeed? And why is that?”
“Because I can see no particular virtue in refusing help when it is offered, or in refusing to take advantage of social connections. We live, after all, in a society where such connections are pursued with vigor and people are often rewarded not for merit, but for the relationships that they have cultivated. Why, even the queen bestows rewards upon her favorites, who vie with one another for position. I have seen my father thrive in such a fashion, which is how he has built his business and his fortune.”
“And I have seen my father bring himself to ruin doing just the same,” said Smythe.
“Because he did not do it wisely,” said Elizabeth. “You said yourself that he had tried to buy his way into a knighthood. I was not trying to suggest that you should attempt to purchase favor, as he did, merely that you should not scorn the favor you have already earned. Consider your friend, Will.”
“What has Will to do with any of this?”
“He serves well to illustrate my point. The part he played in helping me resulted from his desire to help you, because you are his friend. In turn, by assisting you in helping me, he has also helped Sir William, though that merely came about by happenstance. And despite the fact that Will Shakespeare did not set out specifically to help Sir William, Sir William was nevertheless appreciative, and he, in turn, has helped Will Shakespeare by mentioning his name at court and praising him as a poet, which has already begun to bring him some commissions and earn him something of a reputation. Sir William would be no less willing to help you, for your help to him was even greater than your friend Will Shakespeare’s. There is no dishonor in any of this, Tuck, no injury to pride. No one has tried to purchase favor, and no bribes have been offered or accepted. Tis merely a matter of people helping one another. Just as you helped me when I came to you because I had nowhere else to turn.”
“Well, to be completely honest,” Smythe said, “I cannot claim that I was moved to help you entirely out of the goodness of my heart. ‘Twould be base of me if I were to deny that, at least in part, I did have somewhat baser motives.”
She smiled. “And what makes you think that I did not, as well?” She chuckled at the surprised expression on his face. “You look as if I have just sprouted horns. Why do men always presume that only they can think and feel such things?”
“I am not sure that we do presume so,” he replied, recovering. “It is just that we are unaccustomed to hear women speak of them. Especially with such frankness.”
“And why should a woman not speak as frankly as a man?”
“Well, because ‘tis not very womanly, I suppose,” he replied, with a smile.
“Now you sound just like my father,” she said, with a grimace. “The queen speaks frankly, from everything I hear, and yet no one thinks her any less womanly for it.”
“Well, that is different; she is the queen,” Smythe said.
Elizabeth looked up at the cathedral ceiling as if seeking deliverance and shook her head in exasperation. “Again, that is just what my father would have said. ‘Tis a most unsatisfactory and unreasonable reply. It does not even address the question. You say ‘tis unwomanly for a woman to speak frankly. I tell you that the queen speaks frankly and yet she is a woman, and you respond by saying that it is different because she is the queen. Where is the sense in that? How is it different?”
“I should think the sense in my reply should be self evident,” Smythe said. “The queen is not like ordinary women.”
“Indeed. Does being the queen make her any less a woman?”
“Certainly not. Quite the contrary, I should say.”
“So then if being the queen makes her more of a woman, then does speaking frankly make her any less the queen?”
They made the turn on the Walk and started heading back arm-in-arm the way they came. Smythe could not help but notice how men turned to stare openly at Elizabeth as they went by. “Of course not,” Smythe replied, feeling distracted and somewhat irritated. “As queen, ‘tis her royal perogative to speak in whatever manner she should choose.”
“Why then would she choose to speak in a manner that makes a woman seem less womanly, rather than more?”
Smythe frowned. “Because she is the queen, and cannot be judged by the same standards as ordinary people like ourselves. Indeed, ‘tis not for us to judge her in any way at all, for she rules by the divine grace of God.”
“And yet, strange as it may seem, God made her a woman,” Elizabeth replied.
“Do you presume to question God?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Why is it that whenever a woman presumes to question men, they act as if she has presumed to question God?” Elizabeth replied. “ ‘Tis most vexing and exasperating. I truly thought you would be different, Tuck, but I see now that my friend Catherine was right.”
“Catherine?” Smythe said, frowning. He could not understand why their conversation had taken this peculiar turn, or how it had turned into an argument, but it seemed as if Catherine Middleton was somehow behind it all. Until the previous day, when he had learned that the Queen’s Men would be playing at her wedding, he had never even heard of her. Now, suddenly, she was Elizabeth ’s “very good friend.” He could not recall Elizabeth ever even mentioning her name.
“She said that men are all alike in that aspect,” Elizabeth continued.
“And what aspect is that?” he asked, confused.
“That if a man spoke frankly and asserted himself, then he would be regarded as bold, intelligent, and forthright. Yet if a woman were to do the very same, she would be branded a truculent scold and a shrew. And to think I disagreed with her and insisted you were different! Oh, you should have heard her laugh!” “She laughed at me?”
“No, at me! Why must you think ‘tis always about you) ‘Twas my innocence that so amused her. She told me that at my age, one would think I would know better!”
“And what is Catherine’s age, if one may be so boorish as to ask?”
“She is seventeen years old.”
“Two years younger?” Smythe said, mildly surprised. “Why, from the way she spoke to you, I would have thought she was much older.”
“She makes me feel as if she is,” Elizabeth replied. “For all that she is younger, she is much more clever and spirited than I.”
“She sounds rather arrogant to me,” said Smythe. “And rather graceless and ill-mannered, too.”
“You see)’” Elizabeth said, breaking away from him. “You have just given the very proof of her perception!”
“I see nothing of the sort,” he replied, angrily, feeling the color rising to his face. “What I see is that this girl has been filling your head with all sorts of arrant nonsense. I have never met Catherine Middleton, nor has she even laid eyes upon me, and yet despite this, she apparently deems herself fit to sit in judgement over my character, and not only mine, which is presumptuous enough, but all men in general. Would that I had such wisdom at the age of seventeen! Odd’s blood! With such sagacity, by now I could have been not only a gentleman in my own right, but a privy counselor and doubtless a peer of the realm! Indeed, perhaps we should recommend your friend Catherine to Sir William, so that he, in turn, can recommend her to the queen, for ‘tis clear that she should be advising her along with Walsingham and Cecil as one of her chief ministers.”
“Oh, now who is spouting arrant nonsense?” Elizabeth retorted. “You are speaking like a simple, addle-pated fool!”
“Well, you might recall that ‘twas this ‘simple, addle-pated fool’ to whom you turned for help when you were in your desperate hour,” Smythe replied, stung by her words. “And when all else seemed convinced that you were taking leave of your senses and would soon be bound for Bedlam, ‘twas this ‘simple, addle-pated fool’ alone who listened to you and believed in you and helped you. Well, fool I may be, milady, but I shall tell you who is the greater fool, and that would be the man whose supreme folly shall be to say ‘I do’ to Catherine Middleton, for in his ‘do-ing’ shall come his undoing, mark my words.”
“He shall be marrying a shrew, is that your meaning, then?” asked Elizabeth, archly.
“ ‘Twas you who said it and not I!”
She shook her head. “You sorely disappoint me, Tuck. I expected rather more from you. But then ‘tis I who am to blame for having expectations. Women who have expectations of men are often doomed to disappointment.”
“And did your clever friend Catherine say that, too?” asked Smythe.
“As a matter of fact, she did,” Elizabeth replied. “I disagreed with her in that, as well, and told her that you lived up to all my expectations. ‘You will see,’ was all she said. And so I have. Would that I had not. Good day to you, sir.”
She abruptly turned and walked away with a firm, purposeful stride.
Smythe was so taken aback, he simply stood there motionless, staring after her, caught in the grip of indecision and conflicting emotions. A part of him wanted to go after her, but he was not sure if it was to apologize or else continue the argument until he could make her see his side of it. Yet another part stubbornly resisted, telling him to let her go and let the devil take her. He felt very angry, but at the same time, he was filled with regret and self-reproach. And he did not understand what had just happened.
They had never argued like this before. Elizabeth had never behaved like that before. It was a side of her that he had never before seen. Granted, she was willful and possessed of strong opinions, but he had never known her to be so utterly unreasonable, so stubbornly obstinate, so… shrewish.
The corners of his mouth turned down in distaste as he thought of Catherine Middleton, a young woman whom he did not even know, but whom he already disliked intensely. She appeared to be trying to poison Elizabeth ’s mind against him. And apparently, she was succeeding.
“Oh, you were so right, Catherine!” Elizabeth said. “He behaved just as you predicted!”
“Well, that is because men are so utterly predictable,” Catherine Middleton said dryly, as the tailor and his apprentices busied themselves with the fitting of her wedding gown. “Ow! Have a care, you clumsy oaf. You stuck me again!”
“Forgive me, mistress,” said the young apprentice, around a mouthful of pins, as he draped cloth over her farthingale. “I shall try to be more careful.”
“That is what you said the last two times,” replied Catherine, noting that he did not sound especially contrite. “I am not here to be your pin cushion, you fumble-fingered rogue.” She turned to the tailor. “If you cannot find any male apprentices who are less ham-handed, then perhaps you should seek to employ women, so they can perform the job properly!” The cloth slipped from the farthingale as she turned, causing the apprentice to step back, throw up his hands and roll his eyes at his master in exasperation.
“The seamstresses who work for me do the job very properly, indeed, milady,” said the tailor, in a haughty tone, as he stood back with his arms folded, surveying the scene with a critical eye. “However, the fitting must perforce be done properly for them to do their job the way they should. And that requires a certain degree of cooperation from the wearer of the dress, you see.”
“The wearer of the dress shall not survive to wear it if she is bled to death by your incompetent apprentices,” Catherine replied, dryly. “Ow! Now you did that on purpose, you miserable cur!” She shoved the offending apprentice away and he lost his balance, falling hard on his rump, venom in his angry gaze.
“I must insist that you desist from abusing my apprentices, milady,” the tailor said.
“Then kindly instruct them to keep their oafish hands to themselves!” Catherine replied, jerking away from another young apprentice as he fumbled at her extremely low-cut bodice. “You think I do not know what they are about, the knaves?”
“Here, here, what’s all this row?” demanded Godfrey Middleton sternly as he entered the room. “Catherine, I could hear you railing clearly all the way from the bottom of the stairs!”
“Well then, Father, I am pleased that you shall hear more clearly still now that you are here,” Catherine replied.
Elizabeth had to bite down on her knuckle to keep from chuckling. She knew her own father thought that she was spoiled and willful, but she would never have had the courage to speak to him as Catherine did to her father. Not that Catherine was truly rude or disrespectful. She managed somehow to be defiant without openly appearing to defy. It was, however, a fine line that she walked, and Catherine sometimes seemed balanced quite precariously.
“I have heard clearly enough already,” Middleton said, with a sniff. “There is no excuse for this cantankerous behavior, Catherine. These men are merely trying to do their job.”
“Trying is truly what they are,” said Catherine. “They are trying my patience sorely with their pricking pins and groping fingers. I find this entire process vexing and outrageous beyond measure.”
“Milord, upon my oath, I can assure you that my apprentices and I have exercised the utmost care and taken absolutely no untoward liberties,” the tailor said, in a gravely offended tone. “Indeed, if any injury has been sustained here, it has been to young Gregory, yonder, who was just assaulted in a most unseemly manner by your daughter.”
“Aye, ‘twas most unseemly,” echoed Gregory, looking like a little dog that had been kicked.
“I’ll give you unseemly, you lying little guttersnipe!” said Catherine, raising her hand at him. Gregory cowered, as if in fear for his very life.
“That will be quite enough, Kate!” her father said.
“I hate it when you call me Kate,” she replied, through gritted teeth. “My name is Catherine!”
“I should think I ought to know your name, girl, I bloody well gave it to you.”
“Father!”
“Be silent! God’s Wounds, I shall be eternally grateful when at last you have become your husband’s baggage and not mine. These seventeen long years I have put up with your sharp tongue and it has exhausted all my patience.”
“Really, Father, it cannot have been that long, surely. For the first three or four of those seventeen years, I could scarcely even speak.”
“You learned soon enough and well enough to suit me,” Middleton replied, dryly.
“I have always sought to please you, Father,” Catherine said. “ Tis a source of great discomfort to me that I have always failed to do so. Would that I had been a son and not a daughter, then doubtless I would have found it much less of a hardship to find favor in your eyes.”
“Would indeed that you had been a son and not a daughter,” said her father. “Then I would not have had to pay nearly a king’s ransom to get you married off.”
Gregory, the young apprentice, chuckled at that, but Catherine ignored him. The only evidence she gave that she had heard him was a tightening of her upper lip. Elizabeth thought it was insufferable that her father should speak to her that way in front of Strangers. She felt awkward being in the same room with them herself.
“And yet you are paying merely in coin and a vested interest in your business,” Catherine said, “while I am paying with my body and my soul and all my worldly goods. If the shoe were on the other foot, and ‘twas I who paid the dowry to have you married off, then which of us, I wonder, would you think was paying the greater price?”
“The greatest price, I fear, shall be paid by poor Sir Percival, who shall be marrying naught but trouble and strife,” said Middle-ton. “My conscience is clear, however, for none can say that I made any misrepresentations at all in that regard. Indeed, I made a point of it to acquaint Sir Percival in full with the nature of your disputatious disposition, so that no claim could afterward be made that I was not forthright in all respects concerning this betrothal and this union, and so that no rancor ever could be borne.”
“And that is very well, for I would not wish you to bear Sir Percy’s rancor, Father,” Catherine said. “Better by far that a husband should bear rancor towards his bride than towards his father-in-law. ‘Tis well that you have so fully acquainted him with the nature of my disposition, as you say, for now at least one of us shall know something of the one with whom we are to say our vows.”
Her father harrumphed and frowned, looking as if he were about to make a sharp rejoinder, but instead chose to direct his comments towards the tailor. “Are you finished yet with all this bother? God’s Wounds, one would think that you were costuming the queen herself!”
“A moment more, milord,” the tailor said, fussing about and hovering around Catherine like some great predatory bird. He made a few final adjustments, stepped back to admire his handiwork, nodded to himself with satisfaction and then clapped his hands, signalling his apprentices to finish and pack everything away.
“At last!” said Catherine, with a heavy sigh. “I was beginning to feel like some bedraggled scarecrow in the field.”
“Would that your dress were no more expensive than a scarecrow’s,” said her father. “With what this fellow charges for his work, I could attire at least half the court.”
“Milord, I have attired at least half the court,” the tailor responded stiffly, “and upon occasion, even Her Majesty herself, as you must surely know, for you had inquired about my work before you ever came to me. If a gentleman wishes to have nothing but the very best, then he must be prepared to pay for nothing but the very best. I can assure you that once the work is done, and your daughter in her wedding dress would make the goddess Aphrodite blush for the meanness of her own apparel, I am confident that you will consider the money to have been well spent, indeed.”
“Spent is just how I shall feel when all of this is over,” Middleton replied. “No sooner shall I have recovered from the ordeal of marrying off” my eldest daughter than I shall have to contend with marrying off” my youngest, who already has suitors flocked about her like hounds baying at the moon. A day does not go by, it seems, when some young rascal does not come pleading for her hand.”
“Well, be of good cheer then, Father,” Catherine said, “for at least you have never been beleaguered so on my account.”
“Had you a sweeter and more amiable disposition, like your sister, you might have been married sooner, Kate,” her father replied.
“Never fear, dear Father,” Catherine said pleasantly, with only the barest trace of sarcasm in her voice, “I shall be married soon enough, and sweet and amiable Blanche will surely follow hard upon, for all the panting swains who trip over themselves to find her favor. Then, when you are at long last rid of both your daughters, doubtless you shall find the peace and carefree solace you have always longed for.”
“Indeed, the day cannot come soon enough for me,” he said, stepping aside to let the tailor and his apprentices out the door. He wrinkled his nose as they passed and raised a small pomander on a gold link chain to his nose. The little golden ball was perforated, so that the scent within could escape and help mask offending odors. “Good evening, Elizabeth.”
“Good evening, sir,” she said, lowering her head, though not so much out of respect as to conceal her smile and barely-suppressed giggle at Catherine’s face, which was perfectly mimicking her father’s expression of distaste behind his back.
“I could just scream,” said Catherine, after he had left and shut the door behind him. She rolled her eyes. “The way he goes on over this wedding, one would think he was out at the elbows.”
“ ‘Tis a most elaborate and costly affair, though, you must admit,” Elizabeth said. “Her Majesty’s own tailor makes your wedding gown, a grand, costumed progress on the Thames is being planned, to say nothing of the players and the fair being held to commemorate the occasion… indeed, your father spares no expense.”
“But do you think any of it is truly for me?” asked Catherine, as her tire woman helped her out of her large hooped, canvas and whalebone farthingale, which she had worn over a simple homespun long tunic for the fitting. “He does it all only for himself, so that all of London shall talk of nothing but the wedding of Godfrey Middleton’s daughter. Such a spectacle! So grand! So fabulous! And to think what it must have cost him! That, my dear Lizzie, is the true object of this entire exercise.”
“But everyone knows full well how rich your father is,” Elizabeth replied, with a slight frown. “How does he profit by reminding them?”
“ ‘Tis not everyone he wishes to remind,” said Catherine, as she removed her long tunic and was assisted into a simple kirtled skirt of marigold velvet accented with gold and silver embroidery. “Mind you, he wishes everyone to speak of this Olympian wedding festival for months on end, but only so that an important few may hear.”
“But why?” Elizabeth asked.
“Well, you know, of course, that each year at about this time, the queen sets out upon her annual progress through the countryside,” Catherine replied. “She takes a different route each time, one year moving with her entire court from Whitehall to Suffolk, then to Norfolk and from there, on to Cambridgeshire, perhaps. Another year, she will travel from Westminster to Sussex to Kent, or else to Northamptonshire, and then on to Warwickshire and Staffordshire… but each and every year, with never an exception, she begins her progress the same way. Her first stop is always at Green Oaks, where Sir William Worley entertains her lavishly. And each and every year, Elizabeth, at about this very time, my father nearly wears his teeth down to the gums for gnashing them because the queen has chosen to sleep beneath Sir William’s roof instead of ours. He would do anything to have her stay at Harrow Hall, instead, even if ‘twas only once, for once is all that it would take to vault him into the vaunted ranks of the queen’s favorites. And once he can number himself amongst that exclusive company, he will have attained influence at court, prestige, and power, which is what he desires above all else. Meanwhile, what his daughter may desire concerns him least of all.”
“I know only too well how you must feel,” Elizabeth said, sympathetically. “Your father and mine have much in common, which is doubtless why they are good friends. They understand one another.”
“As do we, dear Lizzie,” said Catherine. “ Tis a pity they do not understand us as well. But then, they do not truly wish to understand. Men never do.”
And thinking of her argument with Smythe, Elizabeth sighed and said, “No, it seems that they do not.”