‘Indeed, Master Renwick.’ Celia arranged the skirts of her pale blue dress about her. She was neat and careful in all her ways, a good sign for a prospective husband. The house was neat, too, most carefully tended. Her studies had not kept her from her proper work, Robert noted with pleasure.
‘I understand that your father has spoken to you of my visit and its purpose, Mistress Celia.’ He was standing, his back to the light, so that she could not properly see his face. She supposed it was set in lines of pleasant determination. She was right.
He was sure of himself—as who would not be? He had her father’s favour, and the daughter was obedient. Almost, Celia gave him his yes, and then, as she began to frame the words, something inside her rebelled. To wed him would be to go with freedom to servitude. She had secretly vowed never to marry any man for, as a single woman, she might own her own property, run her father’s business while he lived, own it after his death. She would be in all things the equal of a man.
But if she married Robert Renwick she would lose all. Her property would pass to him for him to use without consulting her. As a separate person she would cease to exist. She would be Robert Renwick’s wife and that would be all. Now, if she loved him, she could perhaps bear that servitude, become his chattel—for that was what a wife was, a chattel, nothing more. But, since she loved him not, she would on marriage give up all to receive—nothing.
The words of acceptance stuck in her throat. She would speak him fair, be kind to him, but she would not marry him. As to what her father might say, well, she would have to live with that.
‘He has so,’ she replied. ‘He has told me that you wish to marry me and that if I wish to accept you, he will give us his blessing.’
For a moment Robert thought that she had accepted him; his face lightened, then darkened again.
‘And you, mistress, do you wish to be my wife? I vow to you that I will treat you most lovingly. You were my Nan’s good friend. You know how well we dealt together. I believe that you and I could be as happy. A man would be proud to call you wife, mistress.’
He would treat her lovingly, he said, but he had spoken no word of love. Nor had he asked for hers. Well, that was common enough, but the word might have reconciled her.
She curtsied to him, and something he saw in her face darkened his. ‘Master Renwick, you are a good man, I know, and your offer is a kind one, made in good faith, and as such I have considered it most carefully since my father told me that you wished to speak to me. It grieves me greatly to refuse you, but refuse you I must. I have no mind to marry any man, but were I to marry one, then, Master Renwick, that man would be you. The world is wide, London is large, and there are many maidens who would be happy to be your wife. I wish you happy with one of them.’
He advanced on her, his face grim. Celia suddenly saw that he could be cruel, and her refusal, which had sounded capricious to her as she made it, no longer seemed so. She had thought him tame but she had misjudged him—and the power which her own sex held over the other.
‘Good Mistress Celia, I want no other maid, I want only you. I have dreamed of you as my wife, lo, these many years, and now it has become possible. I shall speak to thy father and persuade him to command thee to accept my offer.’
‘I think not,’ said Celia spiritedly. ‘He has never yet forced me to do that which displeases me. He may lament my refusal of you, but he will not force me.’ Something he had said struck her. He had wanted her ‘lo, these many years’, but Nan had died only six months ago…
‘No!’ she exclaimed, the colour deserting her face. ‘I hope I have misunderstood you. You wanted me when Nan…’ And she paused, as Robert threw himself on his knees before her.
‘I have wanted thee since I first saw thee as a maiden of sixteen on the day I married Nan. God forgive me, when she died I could only think that it freed me for you. It has been torture for me to see thee about my house. I had not meant thee to know, but when you refused me, my tongue betrayed me.’
He seized her hand and the words of love were pouring out at last, and now Celia knew more than ever that he—and his tainted love—was not for her. Nan’s shadow would lie forever between them.
‘Oh, accept me, I beseech thee. Do not let me burn longer. I will buy thee a silken gown, make thee a fine chain, jewels for thy fingers. Robert Renwick’s wife will be as fine as any lady of the court. You cannot turn away such love.’
Celia pulled her hand away. ‘Please stop, I beg of you, Master Renwick. To learn of this makes my mind more fixed than ever. I can never marry you. Nan was my dear friend. Her ghost would lie in our bed reproaching me.’
It was hopeless and, knowing that it was hopeless, he lost all self-control. ‘What, have you a lover, then, mistress, a secret one, that you should treat a good man so? No wench who looks as you do could truthfully prate of staying single. Was the court gallant who came here yesterday with my lord of Buckingham a man to please you more? Or is it the Duke himself you have an eye to? He hath haunted thy father’s house. Was it for thee he came?’
‘For shame.’ Celia was at the door. She had heard a hundred songs which told of the bitterness of unrequited love, but to see that bitterness exposed, to feel it lashing about her as though he had taken a whip to her was more than she could endure. ‘My nay is my nay, Master Renwick. My father did not breed me to be a weak fool. There is no other man in my life, save in thy sick imagination. I will leave you, Master Renwick. You have had your answer.’
Her small hand on the door latch was covered by his large one. ‘Why, mistress,’ he said, panting slightly, ‘never think that this is the end of the story. Robert Renwick hath always got what Robert Renwick wants, and this is no time for him to begin to lose that reputation. If I find you have lied to me, why, mistress, I make a good friend, would have made thee a good husband, but I am a bad enemy. Think on that.’
Celia wrenched her hand from under his and was through the door, sobbing slightly between fright and disgust. The calm which had ruled her life until this day was shattered quite. She had seen the face of naked lust in one whom she had thought was free of such a vulgar passion, had learned how little she knew of the true face of the world, and it had frightened her.
She fled to the sanctuary of her room.
Celia Antiquis walked with Kit Carlyon that day. She was with him when he woke with a thick head. He rarely drank heavily, and seldom gambled, having little with which to gamble. But at Whitehall on the night of the first day that he had met her he sat down to Basset and lost. The old saying went, lucky at cards, unlucky in love. He staggered to his bed, hoping that the reverse held good.
He had supposed that to win his bet he would also need to win something which he did not want—a woman’s love. He had thought that the astrologer’s daughter would be such that he could woo and win her and toss her away without a thought, as he had tossed away Dorothy Lowther.
Aye, and that was the worst of it. He saw Dorothy Lowther that morning and felt only shame at the sight of her. What! Had one walk on a pleasant afternoon among the herbs and shrubs and flowers with a sweet-faced virgin at his side unmanned him quite? He was run tearing mad. He would forget her—but he could not.
The day was fair, the sun shone, the King was not capricious. The Privy Council met in the morning. In the afternoon the court walked in the open, down an alley whose fruit trees were flowering early. The talk was of the coming war with the Dutch.
The Duke of York had left to join the fleet, Charles Berkeley with him. Berkeley was a friend of Kit’s. It might be more truthful to say that he was a friend of everyone, universally loved by all, from the King downwards. He had written a song before he had gone and early in the afternoon the King called on Kit to sing it—his reward a game of tennis with his monarch in the cool of the day.
The role of courtier fretted Kit. But what else could a landless, penniless