I found the King shorter than I expected and slender too; almost dainty. Dressed all in black, he had a sharp beard and sleepy eyes. He looked older than his years. Around his neck gleamed the only relief of colour in his sober apparel: a silver lace collar, delicate and fine as a spider’s web.
And she! I thought I should faint to see the Queen’s elfin figure skip down from her horse. She was dazzling and bright and utterly infectious; laughing, singing, talking all day long. Her hair gleamed like jet, her dark eyes danced. Lizzy calls her a papist conjurer and perhaps she is, for a moment in her company bewitches the senses.
We feasted at trestle tables in the Great Hall. Quail eggs, salmon, cock’s-combs, sweet potatoes, dates, artichokes laid out on gold plates; everything perfectly seasoned with Hetta’s herbs. I did not realise until then how hard she had worked.
She has been very solemn, very correct in her behaviour since the night Josiah forbade her from the masque. All through the feast she sat watching with a curious expression as the courtiers ate and gossiped. I expected her to giggle, to try and touch the ladies’ bouncing curls, but she did not. She simply cocked her head like her pet sparrow and observed. I wish I could decipher the tangle of her thoughts. I wish that I, like our Creator, could read the mind of the girl I have made. How is it I can hear Josiah, but not her?
She did not appear to enjoy the feast – with her small and misshapen tongue, food is seldom a great source of enjoyment to her. Yet when Lizzy came to take her off to bed, a most rare expression took possession of her features. She left with a smile screwed to her face – but such a smile! It was a blast of cold air, not her usual ray of sunshine.
It did not trouble me much then, to think of her upstairs. Like a heartless woman, I was enjoying myself too much to notice. But now the image makes me tearful: the silent girl sitting with her pet sparrow while shrieks of laughter and notes of music drift up to her from below. Poor child. It should not have been her, marooned like a leper: it should have been me.
All I wanted was a daughter to keep, a female companion to fill the void left by my sister Mary. I wanted her so hungrily that I did not care how I begot her. It was I who scorched my fingertips with witchcraft; I who mixed the draught and took God’s power into my own hands. Why should Hetta be punished for my greed?
She missed the acrobats in the Lantern Gallery, the tumblers dancing on wires above the Great Hall in their shimmering costumes. She did not see the fireworks leap into the sky and explode over the gardens. She could not join in the squeals and surprise as our silent companions made the guests jump, again and again. But perhaps it is as well that she missed the masque.
I did not realise until the performance began how the house had transformed itself into a pagan glen full of nymphs and satyrs. My chariot of shells glided onto the stage in the Great Hall and I performed my dance with the diamonds blazing from my neck. Mermaids pranced in diaphanous dresses, singing their siren song. Petals fell from the gallery. The air was thick with burning orange water. What would Lizzy have thought, had she seen it, never mind the Puritans of Fayford!
Perhaps it is wicked, perhaps it is wrong, this court of endless luxury. But oh, it is intoxicating! And now I have witnessed it, I do not know how I will ever do without it.
My eyes are heavy after all this writing. Each time I begin to drift, I see the antimasque: the evil magicians and their minions cavorting from a fiery cave. Awful creatures: strange, stunted men with overgrown heads. Cackles drifting through the orange smoke. If I fall asleep with these images, I will have hideous dreams.
I was shocked by the Queen’s freaks; I own it. I had not seen things like that before, things unnatural and somehow obscene. I would say they should not exist, they should not be, but then I remember Hetta and I am ashamed. For people say the same devil that disfigures them stunted my daughter’s tongue.
Who can compare Hetta with one of those cursed creatures? They are not beautiful; they are strange and unbalanced. Especially the one who never unmasked but haunted the dances with his leering red face, capering, like a many-legged insect, and frightening my guests. I see him when I close my eyes; moving quickly, winding around dancers, his short body swallowed by wafts of smoke.
Outside banks of cloud are building up, grey spectres against the black. I think we will have rain at last. Thunder prowls around the trees and in the distance, off towards Fayford, I see a fork of lightning sizzle through the sky. If it rains too hard, perhaps the court will not be able to leave. Perhaps we will be allowed to keep them.
The thunder cracks outside. My fevered imagination hears a cry, rising up from the night. Yet there is nothing, not even a fox outside my window.
Lightning floods the room with white light. I see my face in the glass, fleeting, afraid. ‘Hetta is nothing like the freaks,’ I whisper to it, before I blow out my candle. ‘She is nothing like them.’
THE BRIDGE, 1865
Sarah sat at the piano, clunking out festive tunes awkwardly with one hand. The window behind her stood open, letting in frigid air. Her fingers trembled on the keys.
‘Close the window, Sarah. You look chilled.’
Her gaze rose above the top of the piano. ‘I like the air. I like to feel as if I am . . . outside.’ A few discordant notes clanged. She looked back down to the keys.
So Sarah felt it also: this strange pressure; the stuffy, cloying warmth that infused the house. The smell, too. Ever since the bonfire, Elsie could not shift the smell of burning from her nostrils. It reminded her of the wooden baby, sliced in two, no anger or hurt in its eyes – just that awful, chilling blankness.
She sighed and returned to wrapping Jolyon’s present. At least her dear boy would arrive soon with news of London, the rational world. What would he make of her improvements to The Bridge? New paper was up in the nursery: a corn-coloured background with birds and branches in the oriental fashion. The drawing room had new panelling, set with gilt roundels. Best of all she’d arranged for the gardeners to set up great fir trees in pots around the grounds and string them with lanterns. As a boy, Jolyon had stared round-eyed at the shop windows at Christmas, mesmerised by candles and mechanical toys. Now she finally had the money to spare for frivolities. She was going to give him the Christmas he deserved.
She was adjusting a ribbon when a high note chimed from the piano, echoing up to the moulded ceiling. It lingered on its own, pathetic and fragile, before dying out.
‘Mrs Bainbridge,’ Sarah whispered. ‘Mrs Bainbridge, look.’
She froze. Her sweating hands made her gloves clammy on the wrapping paper. Inch by inch, she raised her eyes, steeling herself for something awful.
It was a sparrow. Only a little sparrow, perched on the lid of the piano. He tilted his head from side to side, regarding them. Tiny black eyes darted above his beak.
‘He’s beautiful.’ She kept her voice low, trying not to startle the bird. ‘Better not let Jasper see him.’