Anne Turner was waiting for her, and Frances saw at once that she was distraught.
“I had to see you,” said Anne, and her hands trembled as she embraced Frances. “A terrible thing has happened.”
“Pray tell me quickly.”
“Do you remember Mary Woods … but of course you don’t. She was one of several. You gave her a ring set with diamonds and she promised in return to give you certain powders.”
“I do not need the powders now that I am to divorce Essex. I no longer care what happens to him.”
“But listen, my sweet friend. Mary Woods has been arrested and a diamond ring found on her person. When she was questioned she said it was given her by a great lady in an effort to persuade her to supply poison, that the lady might rid herself of her husband.”
“She mentioned names?”
Anne nodded anxiously.
“But this is terrible. She said that I—”
“She said the ring had been given her by the Countess of Essex.”
“Where did she say this?”
“In a court in the county of Suffolk where she was brought before the justices.”
Frances covered her face with her hands. It could not be—not now that she was going to be divorced from Essex, not now that Robert was eager to marry her and they would settle down together and live happily and openly for the rest of their lives.
“Oh, Anne,” she moaned, “what shall I do? There will be such a scandal.”
Anne took her hands and held them firmly.
“There must not be a scandal,” she said.
“How prevent it.”
“You have influential friends.”
“Robert! Tell Robert that I have met such people! He would be horrified. He wouldn’t love me anymore. There would be no need for a divorce for he would not want to marry me.”
“I was thinking of your great-uncle. He wants the marriage. He is the Lord Privy Seal. I’ll swear that he could put an end to proceedings in a small Suffolk Court if he wished.”
Frances looked at her friend with wide, frightened eyes.
“You should lose no time,” advised Anne. “For if this case went too far, even the Lord Privy Seal might not be able to stop its becoming known throughout the country.”
“So you gave the woman the ring?”
“Yes, I gave it to her.”
“In exchange for a powder?”
“No, that she should procure the powder.”
“Did you know the woman was a witch?”
“I know nothing of her except that I was told she could find me this powder.”
Northampton was seeing his kinswoman afresh. Good God, he thought, there is nothing she would stop at. She had been trying to poison Essex!
Well, he knew what it meant to have an ambition and see others in the way of it. It was because she was young, so beautiful a woman that he was shocked.
She would never forget that she was a Howard; she would work for the family when she was married to Carr. And marry Carr she must; for now the project was as important to him as it was delightful to her.
“Leave this to me,” he said. “The case must go no further. Let us hope it has not gone too far.”
He did not wait to say more; he must send orders at once to Suffolk. It was only a matter of time. If the message reached the Court before sentence was pronounced he could rely on everyone concerned carrying out his wishes.
The woman must be freed and sent away. An eye could be kept on her and a witch-finder sent to incriminate her later, for she was undoubtedly a witch. But this ring which she had said was a gift from the Countess of Essex must be forgotten.
That was an anxious time, but eventually Northampton was able to send for his niece and told her that the affair had been hushed up. The woman’s case had been dismissed and she had gone off with the ring.
“Let us hope, niece,” he said grimly, “that you have not committed more acts of folly which will come home to roost.”
Frances was uneasy for a few days; but she could not persist in that state.
She was too happy; all impatience to finish with Essex, all eager desire for marriage with Robert Carr.
Overbury could not believe it. When he had been told the news he had laughed at it.
