Free The Girl in the Glass Tower by Elizabeth Fremantle Page A

caused an idea to percolate quietly in her mind.
    ‘You have several children, don’t you?’ she asks Mansfield.
    He has his back to her and doesn’t turn. ‘What of it?’
    ‘Your family must produce a quantity of dirty linen. I could take in your laundry, do your mending.’ She tries not to think about her lack of skill with a needle, reflecting on the irony that her privileged upbringing may have given her the means to produce a book of verse, recite tracts of philosophy in Latin, consider the meaning of life, but not to earn her a living.
    ‘Laundry, mending.’ He looks amused, as if she has told a joke. ‘What do you think my wife is for?’
    ‘But …’ She searches for a response, something to salvage this idea of hers, which is the only thing between her and adescent into whoredom – the thought horrifies her – or selling her jewel, which is worse.
    Her mind finally alights on a possibility: ‘A man like you, who is going up in the world’ – he turns; she has his attention now, can see his pride is engaged in the slight smile that ripples over his mouth – ‘might be well served in sending your laundry out. It would leave your wife …’ She lets her words hang, hoping he will fill in the blank with the idea that his wife might be more available for his own needs.
    ‘I suppose she
is
busy enough. We have six children and she is calving again.’ He pauses. ‘Very well, I shall bring you our laundry on Monday.’ With that he leaves, calling out, ‘Good day to you, Widow Lanyer,’ before the door bangs shut behind him.
    Ami leans against the table and closes her eyes, remaining there motionless for some time before laughter catches in her, provoked by relief more than humour. She submits to it until she is heaving and wiping her eyes on her apron. Only then does she remember Hal’s letter in her pocket.
    It is short and perfunctory, so unlike her demonstrative son, and outlines his news in a few short sentences. His final words explain the brevity of the rest:
Someone asked me if I was Lord Hunsdon’s bastard. I said I wasn’t, of course. Why might they have thought such a thing, Ma?
    ‘Oh God,’ she breathes, slumping on to the bench. Regret prods at her. She ought to have told him the truth long ago but she was tied into a lie that was not hers alone, it was her husband’s too and ensured their public respectability. She takes out her writing box, dipping a worn quill into the dregs of the ink, scribbling out a response:
I can’t think why, my love. Someone jealous of your good fortune, perhaps?
It strikes her, the way a lie must breed more lies, and shame creeps over her. The truth seems so complicated and shouldn’t come in a letter; she will tell him, but not now.
    Beneath the slot for the inkbottle is a secret compartment. It holds a small portrait of Henry Hunsdon, wrapped in an old offcut of velvet from a dress she had years ago, in a time when velvet was what she wore all winter. The miniature was made for her by Nicholas Hilliard, one of the old Queen’s portrait painters. She fishes it out. Inspecting the familiar image, she is reminded of going with Henry to the artist’s studio at the top of a building off Cheapside and watching as the tiny likeness took shape. Hilliard had painted one of her too, for her lover. She wonders what became of it when he died. His widow destroyed it, she supposes.
    Looking at the thick sludge of ink in the base of the bottle and the tatty state of her pens, she feels a sense of loss for those times of possibility, when she’d first begun to compose verses and inspiration was everywhere. Writing used to be a thrill that swept her up and carried her along. But that was the past.
    Lady Arbella’s papers are calling. Despite the difficulty in deciphering the text, the story has begun to bewitch her, and though reading it pricks her guilt she feels compelled to return to those scrawled words, hoping they will offer absolution. If nothing else