The Girl in the Glass Tower (14 page)

Though he had been gone barely a week, I was bereft without Starkey and thankful that Hardwick had begun to fill with relatives arriving for the Christmas season, with Aunt Mary amongst them. My aunt’s permanent air of chaos, things forgotten, things in disarray, things mismatched, teamed with her tendency towards unrestrained enjoyment and raucous laughter, provided a welcome disruption to the rigorous order of Hardwick.

On the day she arrived we braved a walk round the icy garden, where she slipped me a letter from Uncle Henry, telling me, ‘I know about your plans. I intend to do what I can to help.’

I read it as we walked together; it was bitterly cold and our breath hung in clouds.

On reflection I think it should be you to canvass Hertford’s support, rather than I. A plea directly from you will have an air of authenticity, demonstrate you are a willing party, a driving force in this, and not simply a pawn in your favourite uncle’s power games.

‘Have you read it?’ I asked her.

She nodded. ‘He showed it to me before it was sealed.’

We were conscious of Grandmother watching at the window and instinctively spoke in whispers, as if she were able, through some kind of supernatural force, to hear us.

‘I see he wants to shore himself up against mishap. It’s reasonable, I suppose.’

‘The risk
is
great to any who choose to aid you, should anything go …’ She let her words hang seeming unwilling to utter out loud the possibility of mishap.

‘He’ll be able to distance himself from the whole affair, say it was entirely my plan and that he was simply doing my bidding.’ I may have been headstrong and naive at times, and unprepared, cloistered as I had been, for the cut and thrust of the real world, but I was not so stupid as to believe that Uncle Henry was plotting for familial affection alone. He stood to gain much by our ultimate success.

‘You know Henry,’ she said. But I didn’t really know him, just the memories I had of the dashing uncle with the magic hands. I was aware, though, that he was as much a means to achieve my freedom as I was a pawn in his game of politics.

‘Whom should I send to Hertford with my petition?’ I asked.

‘Dodderidge is the obvious choice. He’s trustworthy to the bone. Mind, you will need to instruct him well.’

‘Dodderidge? Shouldn’t it be someone of higher standing? Might the earl not be insulted?’ I couldn’t bear the idea of losing Dodderidge, who’d been with me since childhood, even for a few days. I suppose I’d been hoping she might suggest her husband; a petition from one great earl to another was sure to have traction, but my hope was futile for I knew Uncle Gilbert wouldn’t dirty his hands in such treason.

‘Dodderidge knows how to handle himself, and we can easily invent an excuse for his departure. Perhaps his sister near London will fall ill and want him by her side,’ she suggested.

‘You’re so much more resourceful than I.’ I felt inadequate beside my aunt, who seemed to have a practical understanding of the world that couldn’t be found in books.

‘It is hardly surprising since Grandmother has had you holed up here for most of your life. You are all education and no experience. My dear girl, once you are out there you shall find your wings.’

‘Why are you helping me?’ I had a sudden urge to understand why she was prepared to embroil herself in treason on my behalf.

‘Because I love you, of course.’ She laughed then, in a sudden uninhibited burst.

‘I’m glad to have seen the back of that dull little man, aren’t you?’ said Grandmother as we all sat to dine later. We were quite a crowd, with the Christmas arrivals.

Mister Reason had droned out a lengthy prayer. We’d been taking turns to say grace in Starkey’s absence and a man from the village was coming up to oversee matins and evensong every day until the new chaplain arrived in January.

‘On the contrary, I miss Starkey.’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. It was ill-judged to show dissent, given I was secretly preparing for flight.

‘Do you think he’s arrived yet?’ asked Wylkyn. ‘Do you think he’s opened your gift?’

‘A gift?’ said Grandmother. ‘I knew nothing of this.’

‘There is nothing to know. I merely offered him a knick-knack as a memento of his time with us here.’

‘Did you?’ The room fell silent save for the crackle of the fire and she gave me a hard stare. ‘You were far too familiar with him – the son of a tradesman.’

‘They spent a decade together here, Mother.’ Aunt Mary sprang to my defence. ‘Of course they would have grown close. They were of a similar age and shared a love of learning.’

‘Well, I have spent a lifetime with Mister Reason, haven’t I?’ Grandmother looked over towards her old retainer. ‘How many years is it?’

Reason gulped down a mouthful in order to reply. ‘Something approaching forty, My Lady.’

‘And I wouldn’t dream of developing a fondness. It simply
wouldn’t be appropriate. It would embarrass him, wouldn’t it, Mister Reason?’ Reason looked quite embarrassed enough as he nodded his agreement.

Dodderidge rose to refill our glasses, catching my eye and flicking a look towards the ceiling. I would miss my ally when he went off to deliver my proposal to Hertford, with Starkey absent too. Starkey had written; he had been pondering on Socrates, he wrote, and how it is not merely life but a good life that has value. The parish he’d been promised now seemed less certain, and though the tone of the letter was bright, beneath it I detected something else, not quite sadness – more like wistfulness; perhaps he was missing me as I was him.

‘Mother, you are so old-fashioned.’ Aunt Mary was the sole person who dared tease Grandmother. Uncle William, an undemonstrative man with a tidy ginger moustache who was father to my little cousins, sat stiffly as if awaiting an explosion. Aunt Mary winked across the table at me as she added, ‘Will you be inviting Henry for the festive season, Mother?’

‘That profligate son of mine?’ Grandmother’s indignation prevented her from reading her daughter’s playful provocation for what it was, and she began to list Uncle Henry’s failings.

‘There are worse things than profligacy,’ said Aunt Mary, wiping a dollop of something off her chin with a finger and then licking it. Grandmother wore a look of disapproval as she watched her daughter. ‘Perhaps he needs to be brought back to the fold.’

‘There will be no prodigal-son stories where Henry is concerned.’ Grandmother’s response was emphatic and came with a sour look, which caused an uncomfortable silence to fall over the table. The dogs gathered around me, hopeful for titbits. I ate mouse-sized morsels of white fish the texture of
wool. Even for someone like me, who was never seduced by delicious fare, the advent meals were unappetizing.

‘I had a letter from Margaret Byron,’ I said to change the subject.

‘What is her news?’ asked Grandmother, but I was aware this was pretence as my correspondence had been read; I’d seen the hairline crack on the seal where it had been opened.

‘She had a baby.’

‘What did she call him?’ Grandmother had made a rare slip-up; she could only know the baby was a boy if she had seen the letter. I felt a small surge of inner power to be a step ahead of her.

Once the meal was over I found a moment alone in my chamber to write a letter of introduction for Dodderidge to present to the Earl of Hertford. I truly believed, then, that Hertford’s own miserable history of secret marriage would make him sympathetic to my cause and thought about mentioning it in my letter, but caution prevailed. Anything incriminating was to be avoided, so my note was brief and plain:
I send My Loyal servant, Mister Dodderidge, and beg you to hear the news of importance he brings
, and so on.

Folding the paper, I held a candle beneath the wax cradle, tipping a little of the viscous liquid on to the join. With all the letters passing between my uncle and myself the acrid smell of hot sealing wax had become associated in my mind with the idea of freedom, and so ignited in me a spark of optimism. As I pressed my seal, the creak of a floorboard behind me sent a pulse pattering in my temple. I turned. Grandmother stood in the doorway with Joan behind her.

‘To whom are you writing?’ She was wearing a benign expression but I was not fooled.

‘I thought I’d send a letter to Cousin Bessie, wishing her a peaceful festive season, since she won’t be joining us.’ I turned to face them, matching Grandmother’s insincere look
and, as deftly as Uncle Henry performing one of his conjuring tricks, slid the offending note beneath the mess of books and papers on my desk. She approached, casting an eye over the clutter.

‘You haven’t written anything.’ She ran a finger over the unmarked sheet of paper on the top of my writing sheaf.

‘Not yet, no. I was considering what I might say.’

Her finger continued to explore the objects on my desk. My gut tightened. ‘But your wax cradle is hot.’

Fear reached for my throat, threatening to steal my voice, as my mind searched manically for a plausible lie. ‘Yes, I was silly. I wrote asking if she was with child, forgetting how tactless it was in the light of her recent miscarriage, so I threw it on the fire.’

She looked at the hearth and then back at me. I could see her suspicion turning like mill cogs. ‘You are not known for your tact, are you?’

‘It is something I am trying to improve upon.’ It was all I could do to resist expelling a huge sigh of relief. ‘Even
you
are not perfect, Grandmother.’ It was a risky strategy but I felt that a mild insult would provide a distraction and I was right.

‘Perhaps you should look to the plank in your own eye before you point out the splinter in mine.’ Her voice was clipped. ‘To think of the years I have cared for your every need.’

‘My every need?’ I could feel my anger rising, despite the fact that this was my own manufactured altercation. ‘Perhaps it was so, while you remained convinced of becoming the Queen’s grandmother. But now you believe me to be a spent force and the Queen is bent on naming my cousin James, I am little more than a prisoner in your house. What about my need for freedom?’ I couldn’t help my raised voice.

‘I have no idea what you mean. You have quite an imagination, Arbella. I advise you to rein it in.’ With that she turned and swept towards the door. ‘The children are running riot in the long gallery,’ she added without looking back at me, ‘where I have forbidden them to go. Will you fetch them down.’

I stuffed the letter under my dress, my small triumph blossoming in me, and followed her out.

We separated on the stairs, she going towards her withdrawing room and I mounting towards the staterooms. I could hear Wylkyn and Frannie with some of the other young cousins, out of breath, laughing, the throb of their footsteps beating back and forth. It sounded as if they were playing chase. I longed to join them, to fling myself back into childhood, tuck up my skirts and run, to feel that breathless abandon once more.

The high chamber was empty and its fires were not lit, making it as cold as outside. There had been a new consignment of artefacts from Wingfield and I noticed a glass vessel had been set in pride of place on the table at the centre of the room. It was a thing of great beauty, indescribably delicate, its glass body a great orb that flared out at its opening into edges so fine they were almost invisible.

I remembered clearly, though it was far back in my early childhood, where memories are like dreams, the visit to Grandmother’s glassworks. I had watched, spellbound in the hellish heat, as a measure of sand was transformed into a luminous blob of matter, spinning and twirling on a rod before cooling to glass. It was an inexplicable alchemy that something as ordinary as sand could be transformed in such a way. Those glassworks had provided every pane in the vast Hardwick windows.

During our visit, Grandmother was presented with the glass vessel and I was given a perfect crystalline teardrop. I
held it to my eye and the world was changed, its angles softened, objects distorted, magnified, nothing quite as it should have been. It had seemed a marvel to me, though it was likely nothing more than a drop that had fallen in the making of something else, given to a child for amusement. I still have that drop in my cache of treasures, can even now feel its smooth outline through the bag.

I reached out my finger to touch the glass vessel but thought better of it, imagining it shattered over the floor and Grandmother’s fury. A loud crash rang out. I took a moment to register that the vessel was intact and the sound had come from the long gallery. Running through, I found the children standing paralysed, flushed, faces terrified, beside the shattered fragments of an alabaster urn. I stopped. We could all hear the sound of hurried footsteps making their way up the stone steps.

‘Go, go! Take the back stairs. Quick. I’ll say it was my fault.’

They span round and ran to the door but Wylkyn hesitated momentarily, meeting my eye, as if to say he should be a man and take what was coming to him. I nudged my head towards the exit, mouthing, ‘Go.’ He slipped away just as Grandmother made her entrance, flanked by Dodderidge and Reason.

‘What on earth?’ She looked horrified, quite grief-stricken, as if it was one of the children lying in pieces on the rush matting.

‘I’m afraid my skirts must have brushed it as I was trying to get a better look at my parents.’ I pointed to the pair of portraits above, knowing that a lie must not be too elaborate as to rouse suspicion, nor be too simple as to seem implausible.

Grandmother stooped to pick up a shard. ‘It was a unique piece, irreplaceable … the finest alabaster.’

Her upset was baffling; it seemed as if she was on the
brink of tears. I did not know it then, that a person can appear to grieve for one thing when it is something else that has caused the sorrow, and not even be aware of it. ‘Where are the children?’ she asked.

‘I sent them down to the nursery some time ago.’

I wanted to step towards her, reach out a comforting hand to her shoulder, but was rooted to the spot.

‘Can I never have anything beautiful without it being destroyed? I will not allow you to demolish everything I have built, Arbella.’