Mistress of the Estate

By Joel Kirby

The white light of the late afternoon sun was all around her as Lady Noale strolled in the gardens of her estate. The afternoon was reaching its full maturity now. Wanting to be alone, she wandered into the woods at the end of the garden. Only there could she be fully alone and there she continued to walk, wandering deeper and deeper into the woods. She felt again the full sun of the late afternoon and as the sunlight streamed through the trees, she saw the pen of wolves.

In the light of the late afternoon, she thought that she alone liked the wolves. She liked them as pets but she liked them more than that still. More than pets, they were kings. They were kings and queens of this ancient land and they would harbinger in the new age. The new age was beginning. Lady Grey was executed three months previously and it was now thus three months into the reign of the new queen Mary. It was a new age.

The death of King Henry was still in the air even though the ancient land had been through the reign of the young King Edward. Death was around them but so was the sun, she thought. She thought that her husband had been away from her three months now. Maybe he was dead. She didn't care. She wanted to think of other things like love. Yes, she liked love. She liked the idea of love. Then she thought of the new age they were entering. What would happen to her daughter? She liked the idea of her daughter going to the great court in the capital. It was perhaps a darker court than any previous one but her daughter would survive. She had her, Lady Noale.

She knew too that the young Earl Carew liked her daughter. He found her attractive but he was a man with no heart. He liked other girls equally but there was something keeping him to her daughter. Some kind of attraction. She felt that she knew the Earl herself with all her heart. She felt that the wolves knew him as well. And the Earl too would rise in the court like a wolf. He would rise above them all and they would be all left behind. Yes they had their estates and wealth but that was nothing, nothing to compare to the great lights of the court. The Earl was a young man, handsome strong and ambitious. He could have been her lover were it not for her daughter.

She sat on a seat near the pen. The shadow of the Earl was before her. The afternoon light dimmed and there were new shadows in the woods. She moved away from the pen, careful not to soil her clothes and shoes. The Earl now was a shadow in front of the wolves and in the shadow she felt that she had him. She thought again that no matter what court there was, he would prosper because firstly he had no real religion. He didn't care about partisanship, but he knew which side to join when it mattered. The Earl didn't really care about anything; He had no real family and she wasn't sure what religion his family belonged to originally.

It was a time of changes. The bloody death of the Lady Grey would herald in a new time and she had to be ready. She imagined then the Earl in a crown and she began to imagine her daughter. She could be a queen, a young beautiful queen like the Lady Jane Grey. Why couldn't she be queen, she thought and she imagined her daughter's beauty, her clothes, her colours. She visualized her daughter but she was also thinking vaguely of herself, visualizing herself also. And then there was the Earl in his crown also and she closed her eyes. However she couldn't visualize her daughter and the Earl together but she couldn't visualize herself with the Earl either.

She opened her eyes and looked at the wolves. Their eyes were turned away from her, Then she suddenly thought: They are going to marry. The Earl and her daughter. She remembered that someone had said at a recent gathering that they would make an excellent couple. The Earl had not moved his face or smiled. This showed that he was serious and maybe in love with her daughter. She rose and walked back to the house. She wanted to talk to the Lord Rey, a poet who she supported.


Lady Noale sat with her friend Lord Rey in the late evening. Lord Rey was a poet who she sponsored and supported.

'What does death mean, Lord?' she asked.

'It means the end of the material world and the beginning of the spiritual world,' he replied.

'What, Poet, is the spiritual world?' the Lady asked.

'A world, Mistress, where we are free from sin, material gain, the sins of the world, the sins of the flesh, the sins around us.'

'What are sins? Are they the sins that Mary commits, the sins that states commit against their citizens?'

'No, Mistress,' Lord Rey said, 'The queen, she believes she is right in what she does. Lady, I speak of personal sin and I believe that is what you are asking me about. I don't believe you are referring to the general state of the land.'

'You are right, Lord. I speak of myself. I speak of my death, my own. I speak of my own emotions, my feelings which are destroying me. I speak of jealousy and love. My love, passionate as it is, towards a young man.'

'It is infatuation, Mistress and I believe that the infatuation is over. Now you must accept...,' the poet said.

'Accept what?', the Mistress asked.

'You speak of your daughter and the Earl Carew. Your infatuation is over let theirs begin.'

'What do you mean?' the Mistress asked as she became conscious of the darkness in the room.

She looked at the Poet. He was silent. Then she said,'Yes, I see your meaning'.


It was a dark evening in her estate. She walked across the gardens towards the woods away from the mansion. She thought: 'Sin, what is that? Death, oh I know what death is. And nothing is going to stop me'; She stopped and tried to collect her thoughts. 'Oh those wolves have scared me. They have transfixed me. They are monsters. Oh pale monsters. The wolves live in dark times but they are used to it. And the Earl, he is dark like a wolf and he too adapts to this dark age but I am transfixed by him. I mean that I was transfixed and maybe I was enamoured, but it is over. And my daughter, she is an angel, a real angel and she could be an angel of the great London court but she won't be. She can't. Our family is used to the country. The wild country and we won't adapt to the court.'

'But this is a time of darkness, war and night. These are dark times. The execution of the Lady Grey was just three months ago. Ah I wish the Earl was dead. Yes! The Earl but I want him to live as well and be my love.' She thought to herself: 'Yes I must close the gates, lock them and protect my estate so my devil husband can't return. He must be with another woman. He must. Yes the wolves will not let him return. These dark lands will not let him return. Anyway these are my lands forever.'

When she went back to the house, the poet was sitting in the dark and she said to him in the doorway of the great living room: 'Oh I love him poet,, he's like my first love and now I have seen him kissing my daughter and it is black to me, just black and I can't stand it. I couldn't stand my first love looking at someone else and I can't stand this! The Earl is young! And my daughter too! Their's is young love. Oh I can't stand it; it is foul; The Earl is a devil. He is playing with a young woman's heart. Oh I imagine him now red against my black; black against my red. Oh he is a fire... what will I do?'

The poet was silent and he felt that she had more to say. She sat on an oak chair just inside the room. She spoke again: 'This will destroy me but the Earl.. he will destroy us, he will destroy me. He is a craven fool.. born in a land where selfish gain is the only motive for anything. But love, Poet, it exists, does it not?'

'Yes, Mistress, for sure it does, with all its power,' the poet said.

Then the poet said openly: 'But Mistress, you're not in love. It is an obsession. One minute, you hate and the next you love.. it's all fire and torment. It's dark love, forbidden and black.' And the Mistress was quiet and thought. He continued: 'But love is an illusion. It can be as black as night. I know but truly it is an illusion because it ends in dust; not the dust of death but real dust. Love becomes dust. It disappears and that is a death to a lady's soul.'



The following day Lady Noale sat with the poet. He was her only real friend. They seemed to exist now surrounded by the woods, the trees in this great silent living room. Lady Noale turned to her confidant, Lord Rey: 'These are dangerous times are they not? There is a new court, but courts change and my woods don't. But yet Lady Jane was executed. Why was she executed, Poet?'

The poet was silent. She continued: 'For usurping a power and now the Earl, he is protected by the new court even though I know he is no Catholic, a false man. Yes we are fighting still. There is a battle for something. A great battle. And the Earl. He has brought his falsity to my woods, I think I felt love for him. I admit that with a woman's honesty but it is over. Yes, he is a false man, and I don't want him here or near my daughter. He is a danger to innocence, a danger to my daughter. I know his ambitions, but let him carry them out elsewhere.'

Then Lord Rey said, 'Yes we are in danger, Mistress, and maybe the Earl, he is dangerous, too. Our age has reached a kind of doomsday and into that doom we fall.'

'What do you mean? You frighten me,' the Mistress said. 'I know these are black days, but you are foolhardy. Don't talk black with me. Anyway, my gardens are sacred and my wolves will protect me.'

'It is a battle for land, Mistress,' the poet said. 'The Earl and your daughter, maybe it's about land. He will gain access to a great estate if he marries your daugher.'

'Yes, you're right and all hese battles between the new Queen and her adversaries, they are about land, too.' She began to dream but despite her dreamy attitude, she was aware of what the poet said, his warnings but she felt like dreaming: 'Yes, I prefer land that is unsullied, green grass, blue streams. I like the mystery of the land. I can't see a difference between Catholics and Protestants. I know then that all this, it's not about religion.'

The poet answered: 'But Madam, it is about religion.'

She wandered into the garden and then wandered further into her estate. She didn't want her husband to return. So she thought vaguely of locking the gates. Why was he gone anyway and to where? Maybe he was a traitor of some kind. She had heard that word used. Maybe an apostate, a renegade. She had heard those words used. She went back to the poet in the garden who was sitting on the lawn.

'Talk to me of love,' she said.

'Oh love is dark and a soul like yours is not ready.'

'I've been through love, no matter. Poet, talk to me of love.'

'It's dark like the night, but more like a precious dark stone owned by a princess perhaps, the darkest and in a way the most precious given to her by her lover and now that precious stone can be thrown away into a river deep where it doesn't rot but it can sink still without trace. A dark soul can throw it to the wolves of the night.'

'But my woman's love is real.'

'It is a black love, a dark love, that can never be requited. It is an all-conquering love that can never be quiet. it is an infatuation and it is near its end.'

'I love him and I can't allow the love with my daughter to happen.'

'I may warn you Mistress that the Earl sees your infatuation and is ready to abuse it.'

'Lord, I am having the party this week no matter. Your fear is nothing.'

'Ma'am, they think you're a witch.'

'Who. the locals? But they are fools. They think with closed minds. Don't worry Lord.'

'But your closeness to the wolves for example, your dress.'

'But I am still respected in the area.'

'Yes ma'am, but these are dangerous times when survival is important. Pray be careful ma'am. The party may be a frivolity that you can ill afford. The Lady Grey was executed and a death like that still hangs over us. There is darkness in the land.'

Maybe the Lord was right but the Mistress was thinking of something else. She was thinking of the Earl.

For she was beginning to fear the Earl, the Earl and her daughter. But the Earl, he would never marry her daughter, never enter their lands as the husband of her daughter. She left the house and walked in the woods. She wanted more than anything for the Earl's true motives to be revealed. Perhaps if he was seduced. Maybe she would ask one of her maids. There was one especially who would perform this seduction. You just needed an actress to perform the ritual and this maid would do it. She would seduce the Earl at the party. She walked to the young woman in the kitchen.

'The Earl Carew, a young man with fickle heart and unclear motives. I want you to seduce him.'

'Ma'am?'

The Mistress suddenly felt angry. 'Poet, I want him to be seduced like the fool he is. When he is seduced he won't dare to blacken my name. My name is history, a name my husband married into. These lands are historical. I have no dark secrets, none at all. But the Earl he has dark secrets and I fear him. I want him to be seduced, that is all. I want people to see how dark he is.'




Lady Noale stood apart from the company and looked on. The poet looked closely at her and the company of people in the garden. He heard her daugher's laughs in the room behind them. She was with her friends, other daughters of the gentry in the area. The poet spoke: 'I fear something dreadful.'

'What do you fear?' the Mistress replied. She glanced at his eyes in the night and she saw them filled with dread. Then she said: 'Is it the Earl?'

'Perhaps, but the common people believe you're strange. I've heard them say that you're a witch perhaps.'

This was a new world, a new court, the court of Mary but Lady Noale was aware suddenly of the old power, the power of the Protestants, the old world that Mary would never conquered and she realized that the Earl was among them. But herself, she was at sea. She didn't belong anywhere. There would be suspicion about her.

Then she saw the Earl talking with one of the ladies. Yes, he ached for a place in court. He ached for success but why was he intent on her daughter? Yes, he seemed intent on her for some reason. Did he think her unattainable in some way? But she wasn't. Then she realized that any infatuation for him was gone and the Poet was right: Her love for him was gone and what was at stake this evening was survival.

The gates of her land were open, the lights were all around and the air was fresh. There was laughing and gaiety and Lady Noale began to act as the hostess. That was why people respected her. As the night progressed, she thought less of her own worries. She hadn't spoken to the Earl but suddenly she was beside him. She started without realizing it. The Earl asked her suddenly: 'Madame, why do you keep wolves?'

'It is a family thing, Sir,' she answered. Then she was aware of the Earl watching her. 'Why do you watch me with those eyes, Sir?'

'Madame, I can't understand why you keep wolves.'

'I say it's a family thing, and keep your eyes from my daughter."

She went slowly back to the house and asked the poet where her daughter was. Her daughter was upstairs. Then the Poet addressed her: 'You'd better be prepared. They are watching you. They feel you have too much power in the area. There are your estates. They are too large and they don't know which side you belong to. They feel you are like the new Queen in ways, dark, you know. But Mistress, listen to me. I fear there may be a fire to-night.'

'What sort of fire?'

He was quiet as a man passed.

'But the seduction. My maid is ready.'

'Forget that. There is a graver concern.'

'The Earl is more fixated on your land than your daughter. Yet he may be planning an elopement. Your daughter will go with him but not for love, maybe for excitement. She doesn't understand his motives but we must protect her.'

He left her. Then Lady Noale went to her friend, Lady Victor, in the sitting room. Lady Victor moved closer to her and whispered: 'There are rumblings that your place here in society is vanishing. Prepare to leave these parts. I am leaving now.'

'Oh but I plan a small masque, a chase through the woods. My wolves' heads...'

'No, I am leaving, Hermione. Please leave, too. Leave for the city.'

She looked at the people in the garden. The poet spoke to her: 'Lady, I know your daugher is going to be taken, and they are going to usurp yourlands.'

'Who?'

'The Earl and his friends.'

Then she said to herself in a kind of incantation: 'To-day is death. Yes, death waves a wand that is valid over us all, fleeting as death is. It waves a wand that drifts like snow but as powerful as a natural force and that carries a shadow that whirls through forests and coves greens with black. Such is death but death has no name, it is black then white then green and then it vanishes. Such it is that it has no name. Not even a name that it can be recognized by, it is the same as the person who carries death. That is the name. I name Earl Carew as the person who carries death.' Then she turned to Lord Rey: 'Yes, Lord, we leave these lands to-night. Don't tell my daughter. We tell her when it's time.'

'They are watching you, Ma'am.'

'Where is the Earl? And why are the gates opened, and the woods? I don't know if they are on fire of if it just the lights of the party. My mind is tormented. Help me. Are my lands being taken? What are those lights in the woods?'

Then a lady came to her: 'The guests need excitement. Where is your famous ball? I see you are not well but don't forsake your guests. They're talking. What is wrong?'

'Nothing is wrong.'

'Do you have plans for entertainment this evening?'

'Yes I have. We are going to dance, and then a masque, and then something finally...' Lady Noale began to speak wildly: 'We hold a masque now. I have 10 wolves masks. I propose a game of hide and seek. One person will chase 9 others through the woods and touch any person they catch with a red mark but the players they wear wolves' masks.'

'Earl, I order you to participate and your friend Lord Terry.'

She heard them laugh. Then she saw that the gates were opened and people seemed to be watching the party from outside. Perhaps they were servants. She didn't look.

The participants put on wolves masks. She was the chaser and she watched them run into the woods. The lights around her were deceiving her but she believed she saw fire burning in the distance. She looked around for Lord Rey but he was not there. Then madly she ran into the woods. Her mind was turmoil. She was thinking of how she would leave her lands but she felt that the darkness had finally entered the lands but she didn't fear it. Her mind was on her daughter and how to stop the elopement. She was alone but she still had to power to frighten the Earl and his friends. She knew they thought she was a witch, a strange woman and she had gone along with it to frighten them.

She looked around the woods. She was lost but she saw clearly that the woods were burning and she tried to run back to the gardens. She thought that everyone had probably abandoned the games.

From the house, the Poet watched the fires burning. He was with some servants. Lady Noale's daughter was standing in the living room. The fires were burning now in the woods as the last of the guests left. He waited for his Mistress to come out from the woods.

As Lady Noale walked towards the wolves, she saw the Earl standing beside them. She stopped. Behind her fires were burning. What was he doing, she thought. She felt people running through the woods behind her. Maybe they were locals or servants. She didn't care. She was looking closely at the Earl

She stood transfixed and hardly noticed that the Earl had turned towards her. She fell back on the ground and grabbed the wolf's mask off her face. The Earl was over her like a wolf. She shouted: You threaten me with your power... you are a wolf!'

He looked at her.

'You are not Catholic, but you are close to the Queen in spirit. Like Queen Mary, you are dark and strange, a scourge to us.'

'Oh quiet. Let that not stop you.'

'Why do you treat me like this. We fight like wolves. I just want your darkness and strangeness to depart from these lands.'

'Do you want my daughter? Why do you burn my lands?'

'It is not my bidding. It is the locals. I can't stop them. You have other enemies, Ma'am. I am not your only one.'

'So you are my enemy. But my daughter.. she is young and flippant. Sir, how can you go on feelings like that? Why do you want to destroy us?'

The Earl walked away but then she saw for the first time her lands burning and she couldn't think. She was blind. She was destroyed but her daugher's laughing and giggling in the living room earlier came back to her. Survival. That was all that counted. She rose and grabbed the knife from her pocket as the Earl walked away.

She wasn't thinking of the Earl as she rose into the carriage but he was dead. The evening was gone. It was all in the past but still there were flames and bright sparks in the sky. The fires were still raging now. The woods too were on fire. But her daughter was beside her and the Poet in front of her. It was the lights, the fires. Still in all this fire, something was over. Something was finished. The poet looked closely at her as they left the estate. She herself was looking away into the night.