Sarah Gristwood - The Girl in the Mirror

Perhaps that is something I will not say to Lizzie.

Jeanne Winter 1595–96

Around Christmas Mrs Allen’s cousin, the theatre man, sent word he wanted to see her. They’d been given a gift of clothes from some grand lady that needed altering to make players’ costumes, and she was clever that way. She took me along to help carry the bundles, and I went with more than usual alacrity. I was feeling restless since that day at the tourney – as if my little hole in the wainscot were no longer enough for me. It was not to the theatre we were to go today, but to the great lady’s house in Chelsea. The troupe had been hired to put on several shows during the festivities. It was the first time I’d actually been inside such a place and I looked around, wide-eyed, as we stepped inside the high, red-brick walls, welcoming but imposing too. When we mentioned the players, the porter nodded us through, albeit grudgingly.

‘Straight through the court and over to the right,’ he said. ‘Don’t go bothering the gentry!’

They were just ending a rehearsal when we got there, and I left Mrs Allen muttering with pleasure as she pawed through a heap of finery, lifting a scarlet doublet that hadn’t worn too badly. I went in search of old Ben, and found him carefully wiping paint from his face – a face more lined than it used to be. Another, younger, actor stood nearby. I almost said, young actor, but the truth is I found it hard to tell an actor’s age then, and I still do today. All I know is that he was slim, and brown, and pleasant looking and that Ben, who seemed preoccupied, eyed him from time to time almost hungrily.

‘Martin Slaughter’ – he made an actor’s gesture, introducing the younger man to me. ‘Take our young guest to see something of the place, why don’t you? It’ll get you out of my way.’

The slim man made me a light, almost mocking, bow. ‘Shall we?’ As we passed out into court again I asked a shade anxiously if Ben was all right, and before replying he paused slightly.

‘More or less all right. All right for this season, anyway. But an actor’s life isn’t easy as you start to age. The best parts are mostly for men in their prime, and the pretending gets harder every day.’ He turned the conversation, gracefully. ‘But, here, I’m being a poor host – even if my ownership is distinctly temporary. It’s too cold outside – let’s take a turn in the long gallery.’

‘Are we allowed?’ I was anxious here. It was all strange to me. The room was not so much, compared to some I’ve seen since, but at the time the floor seemed an ocean of polished oak, the walls a glowing forest of oil paint and tapestry.

‘Oh, yes. Of course, we bow low and turn tail if her ladyship appears, or any of the family.’

‘Who owns this house?’

‘Lady Howard, no less – the queen’s own cousin, or at least her father was – and her husband, naturally. You’ll have heard of him – Lord Charles, the Lord Admiral, one of the ones who saved all our bacon in Armada days. Off to save it again, when the spring comes, if it’s true what they say about the Spaniards eyeing the French ports, and another Armada on the way.’ I was dumb. Though I had more cause than most to fear the Spanish, the politics of it all still meant little to me. Martin Slaughter must have seen it.

‘Look, here’s a portrait of Lord Howard –’ And we began to walk the length of the painted images in the great gallery.

As we walked, we talked – or Martin did. It was only later that I wondered, a little, that he hadn’t asked anything about me. At the time, I just accepted it gratefully. He told me how he’d wanted to be an actor, since being taken up to the local great house once as a boy.

‘It was her ladyship’s father’s place – old Lord Hunsdon, he is, the Lord Chamberlain, it’s him whose mother was the queen’s aunt – and he’s always been a real patron of the players, licensed his own troupe. They put on a performance, because the queen was come to stay. And my father, he worked in the estate office, wangled us in to watch from the back, and that was it, a few dramatic speeches, and all I wanted to do was join an actors’ company. In the end my poor old father had to ask whether the Lord Chamberlain’s Men could find a use for me. I was with them until my voice began to break, playing the ladies, and then they tried to put me to work with an ironmonger, but I wouldn’t stay. I picked up work where I could find it, but for a while, with the plague, it was a bad time for the play. We all had to find another way to feed ourselves.’ Briefly, his eyes clouded, and a tiny silence fell. I felt I should offer a similar account of myself, but I didn’t know what to say, and in a moment he picked up again.

‘When my old man died and left me his savings, Master Henslowe was just moving into the Rose, with a new company. Under Lord Howard’s protection, it is – he and her ladyship, they’ve been good to me.

‘So now I’m a sharer in the Admiral’s Men, and everything is dandy! But of course, you’ll have heard all about us.’

I stammered, until I saw that he was teasing me.

I tried to ask him something of what an actor felt – whether it wasn’t a thrill, to be someone else every day. To my own surprise, I found I was waiting for his answer, quite as if it really mattered to me. There was a pause before he answered.

‘Yes, of course it is. You can be a lover, a lunatic, or a poet. You know what it’s like to be a girl as well as a boy, and that’s quite something – wouldn’t you say?’ He wasn’t looking at me.

‘It’s as if you get to look at the world through different eyes – or through the eye slits of different masks. You know, you can almost wind up despising those who only experience life one way.

‘But of course …’ He paused again. He’d turned away and was gazing down the gallery. ‘… of course, the most important thing is that you get to take the mask off at the end of the day.’

Katherine, Lady Howard Spring 1596

The queen’s furs should be sent to the skinner soon for beating, and stored away for the season in their bags of sweet powder. I must check whether we’ve enough summer hose from the silkwoman: the woollen stockings can go back to the hosier, to have their feet remade against next winter. The dresses of tawny and brazil colour that did for the cold should be put away; the peach satin furred with miniver, the russet satin nightgown and the robe striped in silver and couleur du roy . In their place come the lighter garments; the carnation-coloured hat embroidered with gold and silver butterflies, the yellow satin petticoat laid with silver lace to ripple like the sea and the velvet in light watchet blue trimmed with silver roses.

I had a dress that colour as a girl, with fine streamers off it to look like water; in my father’s house at Hunsdon, it was, when we all put on a masque to represent the rivers of England, because the queen was coming to stay. Still, I have finer dresses now, even if they do not look as good on me.

At court, of course, the queen’s ladies may wear only black and white, and I regret that occasionally. But I wear what I want to in my own house, needless to say. (Twenty years – more – First Lady of the Bedchamber: there is no way any lady in the land can raise herself higher by her own efforts, and efforts there have been, make no mistake, her majesty’s cousin though I may be.) There’s one dress the queen says she’ll give to me, in the dark brocade suited to a middle-aged lady, and one of my own that should be given away in turn, though I’ve given enough to the players this season already.

Perhaps there is something to be said for keeping one’s mind on the practical. It holds the fear at bay. Seven years ago, the Armada summer, it was almost easier, oddly. With invasion planned we were all in danger, every one of us, all London throbbing with the knowledge of how vulnerable we were, how close to the sea.