Jean Plaidy - The Murder in the Tower: The Story of Frances, Countess of Essex

“Shall I be very regretful? Is the lady becoming an encumbrance?”

“Oh no, no! Be most regretful. I would I could be with her. Say I am sorry.”

Overbury nodded. “Tell me what she looks like and I will write an ode to her beauty.”

Robert described her so accurately that Thomas said, “Could this paragon of beauty be the Countess of Essex?”

“Why, Tom, how did you guess?”

“You have made it clear to me. That is well. Now I know to whom I am writing I shall produce a finer specimen of my talents.”

“Fairest of the fair,” he wrote, “I am overcome by desolation….”

Robert watched him while his pen ran on without faltering. How clever to have such a gift of words! If he were only as clever as Overbury, he would be able to write his own letters, work out his own ideas, in fact he would be as clever as the late Salisbury. With brains and beauty he could have stood completely alone, sufficient unto himself.

He wondered why the thought had come to him at that moment as he watched his clever friend smiling over his work.

The notion disappeared as quickly as it had come; Robert had never been one to analyze his feelings.

Tom laid down his pen and began to read.

In the letter were the longings of a lover, delicately yet fervently expressed. The poetic strain was there.

Frances would be astonished; yet she would be pleased.

Dr. Forman sat at one side of the table, Frances at the other. He leaned forward on his elbows and moved his expressive hands as he talked; and his eyes, bright with lecherous speculation, never left the beautiful eager face opposite him.

In the darkened room the candles flickered.

He was a witch, of course. Frances had guessed this. She believed that he had made his pact with the devil, and should the witch finders suddenly break into the room and examine him they would doubtless find the devil’s marks on his body.

She did not care. She knew only an unswerving desire.

She wanted Robert Carr to remain her faithful lover; she wanted to inspire in him a fanatic passion to match her own; and she wanted Essex out of the way.

It was for that reason that she made these dangerous journeys to Lambeth. For the sake of what she so urgently needed she was ready to dabble in witchcraft, although she knew that the cult of witchcraft was a crime; the King believed in the power of witches to do evil and he was anxious to drive them out of his kingdom. Death by strangulation or burning was the penalty. Never mind, Frances told herself; she was ready to run any risk for the sake of binding Carr to her irrevocably and ridding herself of her husband.

Forman’s voice was silky with insinuation.

“Dear lady, you must tell me all that happened … spare no detail. Tell me how fervent the lord is in his lovemaking.”

Frances hesitated; but she knew that she must obey this man, for it was only if she told him everything that he could help her.

So she talked and answered the questions which were thrust at her; she saw her interrogator lick his lips with pleasure as though he were partaking in the exercise himself. At first she was embarrassed; then she ceased to be so; she talked with eagerness, and it seemed to her that the special powers of this man enabled her to live again the ecstasy she had enjoyed.

When it was over, the doctor bade her rise; he placed his hands on her shoulders and she imagined some of his strength flowed into her. He waved his hands before her eyes and she dreamed once more that she was with Robert in some dark chamber.

Dr. Forman drew back curtains in one dark corner of the room to disclose among the shadows what appeared to be the head of a horned goat; he repeated incantations and although Frances could not understand the words he used she believed in their powers.

At length the doctor turned to her. “What you ask shall be yours … in time,” he promised her.

She must visit him more frequently and in secrecy, he went on to explain. He wished to make images of the three characters in the drama. “The one of whom we wish to be rid; the one whose affections must increase; and the woman. This will be a costly matter.”

“All that you ask shall be given if you do this for me.”

The doctor bowed his head.

“I will set some of my servants to procure what you will need. They too must be paid for their services.”

“I understand.”

“Call me Father—your sweet father, because that is what I am to you, dear Daughter.”

“Yes, sweet Father,” answered Frances dutifully.

She was now receiving frequent letters from Robert. Their passion astonished her, and it was so poetically expressed that she read them until she knew them by heart.

“Only a lover could write thus,” she assured Jennet. “Do you know, he is changing. He is beginning to feel as deeply as I do. Oh yes, he has changed of late.”

“Does he seem more urgent in his passion?” asked Jennet.

“When we are together he is no more loving than he used to be, but it is his letters in which he betrays his true feelings. How beautiful they are! It is due to the doctor and dear Turner. They are making him dream of me, and my image is for ever in his thoughts.”

She thought of the wax images the doctor had made of the three of them. The figure of Essex had been pierced with pins that had been made hot in the flame of candles; and while this operation was in progress, the doctor in his black robe decorated by the cabalistic signs had muttered weird incantations. The figure of Robert had been dressed elaborately in satin and brocade, and that of Frances was naked. The doctor had asked that she serve as a model for it because it was essential that it should be perfect in every detail. She trusted him completely now; she looked upon him as her dear father so that after the first embarrassment she had posed while the image was made.

She remembered the ritual; the burning of incense which filled the room with aromatic odors and vapors. She remembered how the wax male figure had been undressed until it was as naked as that of the woman. The two figures were then put together on a minute couch and made to go through the motions of making love while fresh heated pins were thrust into the wax figure of Essex.

At first Frances had been repelled but gradually she had become elated by these spectacles she was forced to witness.

She believed in the black magic, for had she not noticed a change in her lover since she had begun to partake in it? There was fresh power in his pen, for only a lover could write the letters he was now writing to her; nor did he wait until there was need to write; the letters came frequently, accompanied by poems in praise of her beauty and the joy their lovemaking brought to him.

From an upper window of the house at Lambeth a woman watched Lady Essex ride away accompanied by her maid.

“Quality this time,” said the woman to herself with a smirk. “I will say this for Simon, he knows how to get hold of the right people.”

She left the window and going to the head of the stairs peered down. All was silence. Where was he now? In that room where he received his clients? Handling the lewd images. Trust him.

What a man!

Jane Forman laughed and wondered how she herself had come to marry him. She had been glad to; there was something about Simon which made him different from every other man she had known. He was a witch.

Once she said to him: “What if I were to betray you to the finders, Simon?”

And he had looked at her in a way which had made her blood run cold. She knew that if she were foolish enough to do that he would make sure she suffered for it. As if she would! What? When he could make such a comfortable living for them!

She reckoned she had been a good wife to him; she had never grumbled when he had seduced the maids. He had told her he needed a variety of women; it was the command of his master that he should have no virgins under his roof because they would have come between him and his work, bringing a purity into the house, and that was not good when one worked with the devil.

She might have argued that Simon had soon sent virginity flying from his house, so that he need not have worked so hard in his master’s cause. But one did not argue with Simon. One was thankful for the good living he made and accepted him, his mistresses and his illegitimate children, of whom that haughty Anne Turner was doubtless one.

The two of them were closeted together for hours at a time. Making plans, he told her, for the treatment of this new client who was the richest that had ever fallen into their hands.

She slowly descended the stairs and made her way to the door of the receiving chamber.

“Simon,” she said, “did you call?”

There was no answer, so cautiously she opened the door and looked in. The smell of incense lingered, but the curtains had been drawn back now to let in a little daylight and the candles were out.

She shut the door quietly behind her and went to the table. There she stood looking round the room. She saw the large box on the bench and opening it, disclosed the wax figures.

She sniggered.

“What a fine gentleman!” she whispered. And there was the lady, with what looked like real hair. And what a figure!

She could imagine the tricks he got up to with them.

Still there was money in it—and they lived by it.

“Mustn’t be caught in here,” she whispered; then she opened the door, looked out, made sure she was unobserved and went quickly and quietly back upstairs.

Robert hurried into the apartment where Overbury sat at work.

“Tom,” he cried, “write me a letter quickly … a letter of regret.”

“To the lovely Countess?” said Overbury with a smile.

“Yes. I had promised to be with her this evening and the King had commanded me to attend him.”

“How inconvenient it sometimes is to be so popular!” murmured Overbury.

“And when it is finished will you take it to Hammersmith for me.”

“To Hammersmith?”

“Yes, I was to meet her there … at the house of a Mistress Turner. I cannot stay now, but you know the kind of things. Your letters delight her. Tell her that I am desolate … you know so well how to put it.”

Robert went off and Overbury returned to his table a little disgruntled. It was one thing to write the flowery epistles, but to be asked to deliver them like some page boy was a little humiliating. And Hammersmith! Mistress Anne Turner! He had heard of the name. He believed she was a connection of Dr. Forman the notorious swindler, who might even be a witch. The man had been in trouble once or twice and called upon to answer for his misdeeds. Surely the Countess of Essex was not involved with people like this!

However, there was nothing to do but write the letter and take it to the woman.

An hour later he was riding out to Hammersmith, but his mood had not improved as he journeyed there. Was it absurd for a man of his talents to be employed thus? It was said in some quarters that Rochester ruled the King and Overbury ruled Rochester; and in that case did not Overbury rule England?