by G Lawrence
I could try and assert that Thomas was much older than me, that he was more powerful than me; that his actions were those of an adult and mine those of a child. But I had little resisted him. I had not screamed out or ran when he touched me. I had played his games and whispered for more.
And we, together, had hurt a good woman. A good woman who had given me a mother, a home and a family.
“What am I to do?” I asked Kat.
She peeled the cloth back from her cheek and looked ruefully at the line of smeared blood, purpled by the wine on the cloth.
Her cheek was dark red, already turning a little mauve at the edges. I had hit her hard. Another wave of remorse washed over me. My heart flopped inside my chest, weakened by the guilt weighing on it.
Kat sighed. “We must mitigate any effect this may have on your reputation,” she said. “Although you say that no one saw this…encounter… we must ensure that no one hears of it. Katherine must understand this, even though she is hurt. You are the Princess, and it is your reputation we must protect.”
Kat was all governess then. It shocked me sometimes to see her when she became her title, rather than my friend.
I nodded. Her words were wise enough.
“And if Katherine sends for me?” I said, feeling like a small child, wanting others to face the anger and sorrow of the woman I had hurt.
Kat looked at me sternly. Her warm brown eyes clouded slightly as she thought. She was in just as much trouble as I… perhaps more as she was supposed to be my guide, my governess, who would ensure I was taught the rigours of good behaviour. This incident reflected very badly on her ability to control me, and on her ability to teach me right behaviour from wrong.
To err with an heir to the throne could be considered a matter of treason.
I believe both of us at that time, suddenly felt much less removed from the court; it was as though all eyes in the world had suddenly turned up on us.
“When she sends for you,” Kat said. “You must ask her to mitigate this scandal for the sake of your reputation as a princess.”
“And if she is angry with me?” I sounded plaintive, begging like a little girl for Kat to protect me. But I saw in her face that she would not.
“Then it is up to you to moderate that anger, my lady,” she said. “There is nothing I can do or say as a servant that will help sooth Katherine’s anger. That is up to you. You have entered into an adult game with Thomas Seymour. Perhaps it is fitting that you see the consequences of such a game.”
Anger leapt into my sad heart as I heard that. “But you encouraged me!” I said. “You too did not stop him, or me!”
Kat bowed her head. “I did not say you were the only one to blame, Elizabeth,” she said softly. “But you were also, like me, a player in this game, not a pawn, but a queen.”
My anger stopped abruptly. It was true enough.
I would have to face Katherine.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hanworth House
Spring
1548
Days passed.
There was a silence about the house as though someone had died. There was that same strange air of stillness, as people shuffled in and out of rooms on quiet feet, where people fear to put a spoon in a bowl lest it ring with over-loud sound.
I kept to my rooms. Kat with me, we stared at books without reading the words, stitched at embroidery without seeing the design. My tutors were concerned, thinking I was coming down with an illness. I left my meals to congeal on their plates, feeling hunger, but having no appetite. I felt sick every time I thought of Katherine, or Thomas.
Still there was nothing from Katherine but a marked silence. She did not send for me to keep her company, she did not send for me to take meals with her, to walk or to read with her. She did not send a little message at the end of the day to let me know she was thinking of me as she had done before. There was nothing but the silence. Deep and reproachful. It was as though the emotions of her heart had been so intense they escaped to form a mist about the house, a ghostly presence that floated around me and prodded me in the side and in the heart wherever I went. Her ghostly accusation pained me. I could not see her, but I could feel her at my side all the time, sharing her pain with me generously, and increasing my feelings of shame, and disgust at myself.
In the end, I was longing to see her, just to stop this long and unending silence and guilt. But still she did not send for me. My cousin Jane Grey was sent for. She sat with Katherine. She read to her and stayed with her. I saw them walking together in silence in the gardens through my window.
So, I thought with jealousy, Katherine would have the pallid little Jane with her rather than me! My head answered my petty jealousy; Of course, it said… Jane did not try to seduce her husband… Jane did not take the love she offered her only to spit it back in her face… Jane did not betray her…. but you did.
Of Thomas, I saw nothing. Perhaps he was in the house, perhaps he was gone. He did not seek to see me, nor contact me since our little tryst. I knew nothing of him. I was miserable, alone and drowning in my own guilt and self-pity. I wanted to run from the house, to escape. My mind went over various fantasies about living on the road, or running to my sister, begging my brother for a place at court. But in each of these cases I would have to, at some time, explain why I could not live with Katherine.
I bowed my head over my lessons and tried to study the words of wise others, who would never have fallen into such disgrace as I had here.
And then, finally, after more than a week of silent shame, I had a message that I was to go and see Katherine.
I walked to her chambers, hearing every bounce my heart made and every shaking breath I took. Had I thought I wanted this over and done with? I was wrong. I wanted to turn back. I did not want to face her. I did not want to face my own shame.
I stood at the door and I stared at it. The servant to my side took my hesitation as a command, and pounded on the door with an insistent fist himself. I turned to shush his hand; the last thing I wanted was to enter with a pernicious air of arrogance. He stared at me when my sharp words burst from my mouth, and apologised, although frowning slightly at me. Clearly he did not understand why I was so keen to appear humble before Katherine.
Katherine’s voice, low and sweet, called me in and I found her standing at the window, looking away from me. The gracious room was otherwise empty. I felt a little drop in my heart. Uncomfortable as it might have been, I had wanted to see Thomas. I bowed to her.
She turned to me and inclined her head. “Sit, if you wish to,” she said indicating to the floor cushions. I shook my head and stood. I did not want to feel any lower than I already did.
“As you wish,” she said, looking back at the window where she stood. Her voice was calm and soft, reasoned and… dull. I almost wished that she was raging with anger; I did not really know what to do with this lifeless voice that came from my usually lively stepmother.
“My lady…” I started to say, but she held up her hand. She was looking straight ahead of her, out of the window, rather than at me. Could she not bring herself to look at me? I flushed crimson as I stood not knowing what to say. Words usually came so easily to me, but not on this day.
“My Lady Princess,” she said slowly. “I have loved many people in my life. God has been good enough to me to give me husbands whom I have loved dutifully for their goodness to me. They have given me children, not of my own blood, but dear to my heart nonetheless, and I have striven in all ways to become a good and loving mother to those children I was chosen by God to care for. When I accepted Lord Seymour’s offer of marriage I thought that I was accepting something that had been my reward for many years of loving those who were given to me by duty, but whom I had not chosen to love.“
She stopped and ran a hand over her huge belly. “Perhaps I was sinful in that respect; I should have accepted that this was another love that was chosen for me, and as such, perhaps I have received punishment here for my a
rrogance in presuming I understood the will and the want of God.”
Sadly, she stroked her belly. Her son, her little knave as she called him, was well-grown under her skin, close now to the time when he should emerge. This should have been the happiest time of her life. The reason that it was not, was because of me. I said nothing. I did not know what to say. Being lost for words was an unsettling experience.
“When I felt my son quicken under my heart, I thought this too was reward for a life of service done to the will of God,” she said. “But I should not have presumed again. Perhaps this was just the course of my life and God was not showing me special favour with this marriage any more than he was with the others. For my husbands loved me as I loved Lord Seymour, so what is so different in any of these cases to differentiate them from one another? Nothing. It was my own arrogance that allowed me to think this marriage was special not only in my eyes, but in the eyes of God. I should not have assumed that I was being looked upon by God with a special eye or favour. We are all sinners in his eyes, and we should remember that in the hours of both our pain and our pleasure. “
She sighed and turned around to me. Her face looked older, much older than it ever had done before. It is strange how unhappiness can make a person seem to age so easily. Joy causes youthful bearing in a body, but sorrow causes us to grow old. Her skin was grey and her eyes were dark with shadows. She looked as though she was sleeping little. That merry mouth, usually so playfully curved in a smile, was as straight as the horizon, and her demeanour was as distant. Her lovely grey eyes looked like two little lights shining doubtfully in thick sea mists. Her manner was sad, dignified and restrained.
It would have been better if she had raged and shouted. I felt worse and worse.
“My lady…” I said, trying to push some words from my mouth. “I never meant for anything to happen.”
She held up her hand again. “Nothing did happen Elizabeth” she said sternly. “You would do well to remember that truth. Nothing happened. That is what you should say if anyone enquires or dares to ask. But I would also here give you some words of advice for the future. Men are adventurous. They long to explore, to hunt, to discover the foreign shore. If they do not do this on sea then they will do so on shore and it does not have to be a new sight that attracts them, sometimes it just has to be a new adventure, in whatever shape it may come. Do not become a mere conquest for the desires of men; for anything of that sort, if not accompanied by lawful marriage, will ruin the reputation of a woman, and in a princess, that reputation is all important. The people of a country serve the crown, but the crown also serves the people. If they lose faith in your moral abilities, then you will never be a valued leader in their eyes. If you allow yourself to become a subject of slander and gossip, then you will never be respected. “
She paused and walked to the fireplace; her hands reaching out to stroke the marble slowly, sadly.
“It is especially important for you to remember this, as the charges put against your mother, which brought her to her death, are the first things that most people are likely to know about you. However unfair it may be that we are judged by the reputation of our parents, it is the sad truth of the world. Even if you and I do not believe ill of your mother, you must understand that others will judge you based on your association with her. Being the daughter of a woman executed for adultery, incest and treason, it is of even greater importance for you to appear before the people as a model of morality and goodness. You have less room for mistake and human frailty than any other person. You had much better seek in all your actions to remind others of who your father was; for in that comparison they will have no censure for you.”
There was a silence. Anger bubbled within me; I liked not the manner in which she talked of my mother. Had I been calm, I would have heard that she was trying to tell me this is what others would judge me for, rather than hearing that this was how she judged me.
“It seemed as though you approved of his play with me,” I said, my bottom lip protruding like a sullen child. “You joined in often enough!”
She looked around. In the firelight that danced over her face, I saw tears shining in her darkened eyes.
“I believed that those I loved were above reproach,” she said with a catch in her voice. “I believed in their innocence. I was wrong.”
She turned back to the fire.
“I am sending you to Cheshunt,” she said. “You will live with Sir Anthony Denny and his wife, Joan, your governess’ sister, for a while. Soon I will have to go into confinement for the birth of my son, and you would not see me a great deal anyway.”
“I could attend on you… ” I said.
She shook her head and looked at me sadly. “I do not think so. Before, I would have been honoured. Now….” she trailed off, wiping at her eyes and turning her face from me.
“My Lady… Katherine… your Highness… I am so sorry for the hurt I have caused you!” I said desperately, tears bursting out from my eyes. All my sullenness was gone and all I wanted was for this lovely woman, this friend, to turn and take me in her arms and tell me all was well.
I wanted my mother back.
She sighed, and made no move towards me. “I am sure that is true, Elizabeth,” she said. “Sometimes you seem so much older than you truly are, and sometimes it is easy to treat you as an adult where in truth you are still a child.”
My arms dropped to my sides. Tears ran down my cheeks and onto my crimson dress. I did not seek to wipe them with my fingers. I just let them fall as I sobbed.
“You will take Mistress Astley and her husband, your accounts officer Parry, your household, and any servants you need,” she said after a pause. “You will maintain written contact with me as your guardian, but you will not visit this house unless you are expressly invited by myself.“ She looked up and straightened herself. “I cannot command you to have no contact with my husband, should he initiate it, but I would ask you, for any thread of the love that you once professed to bear for me, that you will not try to contact my husband once you have left. I want to trust you, Elizabeth, but I do not know how to unless you adhere to these requests.”
I nodded dumbly at her.
Satisfied, she nodded. “We will say that you are gone as the rigours of my childbed are too much for one so young. Jane also will not be attending me and I will have my own ladies, such as Lady Tyrwhitt and the court doctors to attend me instead.” She looked at me and gave a small, tight smile. “Perhaps after the birth of my son, we will be able to see what arrangements can be done for the future.”
I nodded. Tears were still flowing freely from my eyes and I wiped them with my sleeve. Katherine stepped forward and handed me a cloth with the very edges of her fingers, as though I was a leper. I slowly wiped my eyes and nose with it.
“Go now, and prepare for your departure,” she said. “And when you get to your chambers tell Mistress Astley that I wish to have a word with her before you depart for her sister’s husband’s house.” She paused. “If I should hear that anything is said of you, Elizabeth, in this matter or any other, then I shall send warning of it to you, so that you might defend your reputation. I myself will say nothing of what has occurred here and I will impress on my husband to do the same.”
I nodded, curtseyed awkwardly, and then turned and fled.
Arriving back in my rooms and throwing myself on my bed, I fell into a torrent of weeping. Kat went to Katherine, and came back grim-faced. She set about packing for us with the other servants in silence and anger.
I lay on my bed and cried until it was time to sleep, and then I sat at my window and stared out at the moonlit gardens. Kat was already abed on a pallet on the floor. She did not, it seemed, wish to share covers with me that night.
I was being sent from this house in disgrace. I was being sent away from the woman whom I had loved as a mother and the man I had fallen in love with.
As I watched the moonlight trip over the manicured hedges and herbs, I saw on th
e far side of the park a shape moving in the undergrowth. As the shape moved closer, I saw the outline of tawny red as a little vixen came into view. Her crimson coat glinted in the silver moonlight, her black nose sniffed at the air, sensing if there was danger ahead. Quietly and quickly she moved, pausing here and there to sniff once again and to feel any hazard that moved ahead of her.
As she slunk away through the undergrowth, I thought of the cautious vixen, and her wily way of moving without being discovered. She was master of her own little space, without need for any other to protect or restrict her. She was free within her world, free because she was careful and cautious. I must be careful and cautious. I was not a child anymore, and I was, in truth, as alone and as vulnerable as that midnight traveller skulking through the undergrowth in the pale moonlight. I must learn to sniff out danger before I saw it, too.