The Dark Lady's Mask Read Free

surprise.
    Angela cried out in delight. Francis Holland was her suitor and Mother placed all her hopes in him, for he was a gentleman, the youngest son of a West Country knight. Even his footfalls sounded elegant as he strode the floors in his Spanish leather boots. Her sister was besotted with the man, but Aemilia despised the way he talked through his nose as though they were beneath him, the way he brayed like an ass when he laughed. Mother said his manner of speaking was a mark of quality, the way all rich men spoke.
    Still hovering over the trapdoor, Aemilia considered pounding on it and begging her father and uncles to open up, to let her join them, but she knew they would refuse and even punish her for her impudence.
    â€œWhat a pleasure,” Mother was saying to Master Holland. “Come watch Angela whilst she plays the virginals. I’ll fetch the Canary wine.”
    â€œAh, my musical maiden, queen of all the Muses,” Francis Holland drawled.
    Angela giggled while she continued her arpeggios.
    At the sound of approaching footsteps, Aemilia scurried beneath the kitchen table and squeezed herself into a ball as Mother fluttered in to get the wine. Her mother sang to herself like a woman already drunk, as though to cover what was happening below. Meanwhile, Angela pounded the virginals keys as if her life depended on it. But if her sister drank wine with Master Holland, Aemilia reasoned, surely she would have to lift her hands from the instrument.
    â€œWhere has that child gone?” she heard Mother ask Angela.
    â€œI thought she was with you,” said her sister.
    Mother took over at the keyboard. Aemilia knew this because that unholy jangling could not have been her sister’s music.
    â€œThe moon is so lovely tonight, Master Holland,” Mother shouted over the jarring notes. “Why don’t you and Angela step out into the garden?”
    Huddled under the table, Aemilia listened to them go out the back door, Angela laughing like a Bedlamite in response to Master Holland’s japes and jests. Mother waited a minute before dashing after them. Until they were formally betrothed and the wedding banns set outside Saint Botolph’s church, Mother would guard Angela as though she were a diamond.
    When they were finally gone, their voices swallowed in the garden’s hush, the men’s song arose again. Aemilia pressed her ear to the vibrating floorboards. How she yearned to unravel her father’s mystery. She held her breath to hear him chant in the forbidden language he would not speak to any but his brothers.
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    Barukh atah Adonai m’kadeish haShabbat. Amein.
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    Seven years old, what could she comprehend of banishment and exile?
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    E VERY S UNDAY WITHOUT FAIL , the Bassanos attended church at Saint Botolph-without-Bishopsgate where Aemilia learned to stand with her spine rigid and not yawn lest Mother pinch her. The curate frowned upon organ playing, so they sang the psalms a capella. Though Aemilia adored the singing, the sermon on the torments of hell was so fiery that it raised her skin. In a panic, she gazed over to the men’s side of the church where Papa stood, his face unreadable. When the service dragged to an end, she launched herself into his embrace.
    â€œDo you fear hell?” she asked, her heart pounding sickly. How was she to know if she was part of the Elect who would be saved or merely one of the countless damned?
    Papa’s face crinkled as he lifted her in his arms.
    â€œAemilia, I will tell you a secret,” he whispered in her ear. “Do you promise not to speak a word of this to anyone?”
    Solemnly, she nodded.
    â€œHell is empty,” he whispered.
    As she gazed at him in astonishment, he kissed her cheek.
    â€œAll the devils live up here in plain sight.”
    He pointed across the road to where a gaggle of idlers loitered outside Bedlam Hospital. Their guffaws pricked the air as they pointed and jeered at the