Early in Bedtrick when faced with a dilemma, Sander seeks out her old friend Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke. Unlikely as a friendship between an actor and a noble woman may seem, their connection is long-standing. The Countess has a special interest in the theatre through her husband Henry Herbert, who sponsored a troupe of actors, Pembroke’s Men, credited as one of the first companies to perform Shakespeare’s plays.
However, the Countess herself is one of the most accomplished women of her day, a patron of poets and chemists at her country estate Wilton House. Thus she’s received more dedications of poetry than any other woman in England. Yet she is also a writer herself, literary executor of her brother Sir Philip Sidney, whose life ended prematurely by a bullet fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands. Not only did Mary revise his Arcadia and finish his psalter, but also translated a play on her own, The Tragedie of Antonie, from the French.
Years before Bedtrick opens, after Sander performed in Richard III at the Theatre, the Countess invites her to a private conference at the Pembroke’s London residence, Baynard’s Castle. There she drags Sander’s secret from her. Curious to see what a woman can do onstage where only males are supposed to perform, she befriends Sander and tells her to call her Marie.
When Sander confronts difficulties early in Bedtrick, she takes up Marie’s offer and calls on her at Baynard’s. Although the Countess cannot solve her problem, which involves her niece Lady Elizabeth Sidney Manners over whom she has no authority, the two of them talk about love and marriage.
Sander once loved the poet John Donne, but they couldn’t be together. She would have had to leave the stage and become a woman again. Isn’t love important in marriage? In Chapter III, Marie opens the conversation.
“‘Think about marriage for a moment, Sander. I was Henry Herbert’s third wife, wed when I was sixteen.’
‘A fine match.’
“Yes, in the eyes of society. But how fine is it for a young girl to marry a man nearing fifty? Make no mistake, I’m content. The Earl has been a kind and indulgent husband. Marriage is sanctioned in the eyes of God, but also based on status and position.”
“Forgive me, Marie, but you speak of the nobility.”
“Not altogether. . . . We’re better as two in this world.”
. . . . “What about love?”
“Generosity toward each other and mutual caring can, with time, grow into love.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but do you mean—” I paused, confused. “You’re not talking about Frances and me, are you? We’re fast friends. But two women! How could we marry?” I banged down my goblet hard enough to crack, but neither of us even glanced at it.
“I’m not telling you what to do, but it wouldn’t be impossible. After all these years as a man, no one questions you. By marrying, you would guarantee Frances her business and position, and she would be a helpmeet to you.”
A helpmeet. I ran my fingers through my hair as if the gesture could clear my perplexed mind. “I do like the idea of a companion.”
“And Frances needs a husband. You two could make something of this marriage, peculiar though it be.”
“Worse than peculiar. I’ve read the ceremony of matrimony in the Book of Common Prayer—” I couldn’t go on.
Then I realized. In the world’s eye I was but a player. Marie had served as lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. She knew I was female, as she had befriended me for that very reason. But perhaps, since my status was so far removed from hers, she believed I needn’t worry about those binding words. Though she was known for her piety, not all nobility took church dictums seriously. The Earl of Rutland married her niece Lady Elizabeth knowing, if Marie’s intimations were correct, that he’d not father children with her. I’d seen enough of noble marriages to know that not a few were contracted more for titles and lands than mutual comfort and love.”
In the final chapter of Bedtrick, Sander’s company performs at As You Like It in the gardens at Wilton House for King James. By then Lady Mary’s husband has died and her son William Herbert is Earl of Pembroke. Not one to remain as the dowager Countess on her son’s property, Marie moves to a smaller residence in London and traveles to the Continent after this book closes, a rare and brilliant woman in Sander’s life.