Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > A Net for Small Fishes > Status Update

“So be it! I say these crimes are the result of implacable malice, being the malice of a woman. Let us establish what manner of creature is this that stands before us. You who pretend to be goodwife, friend and mother but are truly a whore, a sorcerer, a witch, a bawd, a Papist, a felon and a murderer!”

‘For the rest of that year and into the next, the Court was viler than ever Frankie or I had known it. One moment the King would favour Villiers, the next Carr. With Lord Salisbury and Lord Northampton dead, it seemed the King was trying to rebalance his Court, curbing the power of the Howard family by playing them off against the Essex crew. No business could be transacted; clients did not know whom to follow.’

‘Outside, the brightness of late summer took me by surprise: I had expected darkness. I leant against the warm brick, closed my eyes, and saw a network of tiny lines, a delicate tracery of life. I thought of Sir Thomas Overbury and wondered whether he too saw blood-red lace when he closed his eyes. I prayed fervently that he would die from the illnesses that assailed him and spare us the need to quicken his end.’

‘Wretchedness and impatience had driven her to ignore my counsel and resort to foolish measures. I wanted to save her from rashness as she had saved me from destitution, but still I thanked my angel guardian that Arthur was to relieve me of dependence on her. Frankie would always be in my soul, but I would soon be free from the scandal and gossip that followed her like begging children.’

‘he would taste the infusion or note a difference in my expression, but I felt no guilt. I believed that if we married our union would be legal and blessed by God, our children would have safety and prospects, and he could know them better. I saw only benefit – was that wrong? Was it at that moment I lost my way? It is hard to ask God’s forgiveness for an act that I cannot, in my heart, perceive as wicked.’

‘Were not Time and Fate sisters? My feeling is that they both work against us, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, with the briefest interruptions when the tide flows backwards for a happy moment, mainly due to our own endeavours. Of course, they are both just other names for the workings of God. I had renewed my efforts to stay in favour with my angel keeper after George’s death’

‘Friendship with Frankie was bringing me the benefits I had foreseen; foremost amongst them, love. Although I sensed a slight distance between us, as was perhaps inevitable in light of our differing ranks and ages, we were like a happily married couple, our talents complementary and our shortcomings thereby ameliorated.’