by Susan Kay
“She’s still a virgin,” he muttered. “I give you my word on that, Kate. It’s the first time I’ve ever let it go so far.”
“Then give me your word that it will also be the last and I too will be more than grateful to call it nothing.”
As she watched, a slow flush mounted to his forehead. He stared out of the window at the brick-walled garden and was stubbornly mute.
“Then you leave me no choice,” said Katherine dully. “I must send her away.”
“You asked me to give my word,” he pointed out grimly. “It would have been easier for me to lie and spare you the truth.”
She conceded the point wearily. She was great with child now and it was several months since he had shared her bed. At such a time, any woman in the household would have been happy to accommodate him. There was no need for him to have chosen Elizabeth unless—
“You love her, don’t you?” she whispered.
Abruptly, he turned on his heel and went to the door.
“Just send her away, Kate,” he said harshly. “And send her quickly. I don’t want her in this house a moment longer than necessary.”
When he had gone, Katherine sank into a chair and let the tears roll slowly down her grey face.
It was all the answer she needed.
* * *
Torches were already blazing in their wall brackets, despite the evening sunshine, when Elizabeth closed the door of the Queen’s room and trailed wearily over the rushes in the Long Gallery. It had been a quiet interview, without harsh words, bitterness, or recrimination, but it had been hurtful to them both, leaving them like spent swimmers, gasping on some alien shore. The dignity of Katherine’s generous spirit had humbled her, searing her with a remorse which made her squirm and want to hide away in shame. Nothing she could say or do would ever make amends for the wicked mess she had made of all their lives. And the memory of Katherine’s anguished face would follow her into her lonely exile, feeding her gnawing sense of guilt, that most self-destructive of all emotions.
She stood still for a moment, grinding her slippered feet into the rushes and watching the cockroaches scatter. The thought of returning to her own apartment, to Kat Ashley’s anxious questions and reproachful platitudes, was unbearable. She did not need the ruffled governess to tell her that she had only herself to blame…
At the end of the gallery there was an arched bay with a cushioned window-seat. She sank into it with relief and leaned her hot head against the thick glass of latticed panes, glad of its cool touch against the sick throbbing in her right temple. The pain was unfamiliar and intense; it seemed to be growing in severity, obscuring her vision, and it frightened her a little.
She had been too proud to tell Katherine or Kat, lest they assumed it to be a play for sympathy; now she nursed the acute discomfort with a touch of self-pity and fiercely hoped she had the plague. How much easier it would be to face death than to go away, alone, and in disgrace, with everyone knowing why she went…
A heavy hand fell on her shoulder, causing her to jump and start round. Beyond the window the sun was setting in a great red ball behind the trees, and a thin shaft of brilliant light cut at a low angle through the greenish glass, making a glory of the Admiral in his russet doublet.
“Has the Queen spoken to you?” he asked brusquely.
“Yes,” Elizabeth swallowed hard. Hot colour was flooding into her pale cheeks; she could not look at him.
He frowned. “Did she—speak harshly?”
Elizabeth shook her head slowly. “She was very kind. I almost wish she had been angry. She made me feel like—like an ungrateful hedge-drab.”
“It was no one’s fault,” he began uncomfortably. “When something like this happens we all have to be—sensible about it.”
“As sensible as my father perhaps?” She fixed him with a look of contempt which struck him to the heart. “What would the Lord Admiral do, I wonder, if he found his wife on the floor with another man?”
Goaded to the limit of endurance, he dragged her out of the window and shook her violently.
“Do you think I’m proud of this day’s work, you taunting jade? I swear by God’s precious soul I never meant to hurt her. Is it a crime to love two women?”
“No, it’s not a crime.” Her lips were curled in a bitter smile. “Merely a damnable inconvenience to you. And what did poor Uncle Tom ever do to deserve that?”
“You bitch!” He slapped her smartly across the mouth. “Don’t you ever call me that again!”
Both hands flew to her head; she moaned and crumpled up in the window-seat in a dazed stupor. The colour drained out of her face before his eyes and for a moment he was afraid he had knocked her senseless. He had hit her hard enough to hurt, it was true, but not that hard—surely not that hard.
“Bess!” Frightened by her colour, he lifted her up and touched the flaming patch at the corner of her mouth with remorse. It was the first time he had ever struck a woman—the first time he had ever felt either the need or the desire to. In all his light love affairs, he had always been the master, carelessly in command, conferring his virility with casual superiority on an enchanting but decidedly inferior breed. In Elizabeth he had met his match—perhaps more than his match—and her taunt was like a burn on his manhood.
But his savage blow now seemed unforgivable to one who looked suddenly so small and forlorn and wretched.
“You have to go away,” he said slowly. “There is no alternative. If you stay, I couldn’t answer for what might befall you. It’s too dangerous.”
She said on a little strangled sob, “I don’t care about danger.”
“No,” he muttered, looking at her strangely. “Your mother never cared either. And you’re like her—too much like her. You fey a man worse than a quart of aqua vitae—you too could brew murder—as she did.”
Elizabeth leaned against the wall and drew a shaky breath.
“Then it’s you, and not Katherine, who is sending me away.”
“Katherine would keep you here if she could,” he said hoarsely. “If you were her own daughter, she couldn’t love you better.”
Elizabeth bit her quivering lip.
“She said we were not to blame, you and I—that you had a man’s appetites and that I was too young to resist them. She begged me to guard my reputation with the people. She said one day—I might be Queen of England.”
“So you will be,” he said quickly. “A great queen.”
“And a great catch!” Her voice was suddenly soft with venom. “That’s why you asked me first—what a fool I was not to see it before now.”
She tried to push past him, blind with rage, but he caught her roughly.
“Listen to me—listen—”
“I don’t want to hear your lies,” she sobbed, fighting free of him. “I won’t be used—not by you or anyone else. I’ve lost my home for nothing. Oh, why did you have to come here and spoil everything? I hate you! I hate a all men.”
He let her go then, appalled by the pulsing violence in her voice. If she had had a dagger in her hand he would not have given a farthing-piece for his own life in a further struggle. Suddenly he felt he didn’t know her, that he had never known her—the real Elizabeth—and he was shocked by the discovery. This morning a woman had sprung to life in his arms, but now that woman had gone, perhaps for ever. It was a child who ran away from him down the narrow gallery of Chelsea Palace; and as he stood and watched that reckless headlong flight he had the morbid fancy that she would go on running for the rest of her life.
Chapter 5
Elizabeth’s immediate future was settled quickly and without dispute, both guilty parties being anxious to humour the injured. Sir Anthony Denny, a close friend of the Dowager Queen, agreed to take the Princess and her entourage under his own roof at the manor of Cheshunt, and if he was startled by the unprecedented nature of
the arrangement, he was sufficiently a courtier to give no outward sign.
They were difficult days for everyone, those few before Elizabeth’s departure, hours of feigned gaiety on both sides, alternating with tense, moody silences; tedious meals accompanied by equally tedious conversation. The old, jolly informality of the household was sealed for ever beneath a layer of ice which could not be broken no matter with what goodwill it was attacked; little Jane Grey sat crushed by the atmosphere, fervently wishing her tempestuous cousin were gone.
And at last, a week after Whitsun, she was gone indeed. Jane stood in the arched doorway beside the Queen and waved to the trim figure in the green riding habit, as she cantered down the drive at the head of the great, rumbling retinue of carts and pack horses, riding off into the still green countryside and out of their lives. Long after the drive was empty once more, Katherine stood there, watching the white dust swim and settle behind the tramping hooves and Jane knew, without daring to look, that tears were running down her haggard face. Jane’s Greek and Latin were equal to many a Cambridge scholar’s but the harsh emotional repressions of her childhood had left her tongue-tied in the presence of other people’s distress.
“If it please Your Grace,” she said uneasily, “my tutor will be waiting in the library.”
“Of course.” Katherine turned and smiled down at her absently. “Run along to your studies, my dear.”
Jane hesitated.
“Will Your Grace not come inside out of the heat?” she ventured timidly.
Katherine’s preoccupied gaze still roamed down the empty drive.
“I think I should like to walk a little in the gardens,” she said slowly. “Run along now, child. I need no attendant.”
Jane ran up the wide staircase and knelt in the window-seat, watching that sad, shapeless little figure trail away across the lawns until she too was out of sight. Then the grounds were still and silent once more, like an empty stage at the end of some dramatic performance. It would certainly be peaceful with Elizabeth gone, but strange, as though some of the colour had gone out of the world in her absence. And people would miss her—even those like Jane, who did not particularly like her.
Jane leaned her head on her arms and thought sadly: If I were to leave here, it would be a week before anyone noticed I was gone…
* * *
When Elizabeth arrived at Cheshunt, the Dennys were waiting on the steps to greet her, hiding their curiosity beneath a civil mask of welcome. Some very ugly rumours had preceded her coming—it was even said in some quarters that the Princess was pregnant.
Certainly she was pale enough, thought Joan Denny as she rose from a curtsey and surveyed that slim, rather arrogant figure, but if she was, it was too early to tell by her external appearance. Faintly disappointed, Lady Denny went down the steps to greet Mrs. Ashley, who was her sister.
“Well, Kat,” she said with muted disapproval. “Here’s a pretty state of affairs, I must say, when the King’s daughter has to be sent away in disgrace. What were you about to let such a thing take place under your very nose?”
Kat stiffened and returned a perfunctory embrace.
“I hope you’re not going to take that attitude, Joan, or our stay here will be most disagreeable.”
“Well, I’m not blaming you, of course,” added Lady Denny hastily. “God knows I never envied you the post—always said you’d have more than one body’s work. She’s a haughty little piece, isn’t she? Gives you trouble aplenty, I’d say.”
“She’s very young,” said Kat loyally, flushing as though her sister criticised her own child, “and whatever you’ve heard I don’t doubt has been grossly exaggerated. The Lord Admiral would turn any girl’s head. You take my word for it, Joan—she’s more sinned against than sinning.”
“Well, my dear, I’m sure you know her best.” Joan sniffed and glanced doubtfully at the girl on the steps. “She’s very pale, don’t you think?” she added meaningfully. “I hope she’s not ill.”
“She’s been having headaches lately—very bad headaches.”
“Any vomiting?”
“Well, once or twice she—” Kat saw her sister’s smile and broke off sharply. “What are you trying to suggest, Joan?”
“I’m not trying to suggest anything,” said Joan smoothly. “Merely that if she’s ill perhaps we ought to send for the Protector’s physician.”
“When I think that’s necessary, I’ll send for him myself,” snapped Kat, and followed her mistress into the house without another word.
* * *
The violent headaches continued throughout the summer and were accompanied by irritability, and a drastic weight loss. Kat was on the very point of sending London for Dr. Bill when, at the end of August, Katherine’s child was born, and Elizabeth’s fierce tension relaxed. And when she began to eat a little and talk hopefully of going home, Kat was reasonably certain the worst was over.
Late one evening in early September a courier arrived from Sudley Castle where the Seymours were now in residence, and Kat left her seat at Elizabeth’s bedside to receive him in the solar. Much later, returning with a slow, wretched step to Elizabeth’s room, she found her charge sitting bolt upright in bed.
“Where have you been?” Elizabeth accused wildly. “I thought you were never coming back.”
“Downstairs,” said Kat vaguely, keeping her face carefully averted from the bed. “Just downstairs—”
“I heard a horse in the courtyard. Has someone arrived?”
“There’s been a message,” Kat swallowed hard. “From the Admiral’s household.”
Elizabeth was silent, staring at her. After a moment she said softly, “Did the baby die?”
“It wasn’t the baby.”
There was no need to say any more; Katherine’s name hung unspoken on the air.
“But she was well,” gasped Elizabeth. “I had a letter—they told me she was well!”
“Child-bed fever,” Kat muttered. “Very sudden. That’s the way it always strikes, just when you think they’re out of the woods. The courier told me the Admiral is out of his mind with grief—of course, it’s a terrible shock for him—”
“He’ll get over it!” Elizabeth turned her head away on the pillow; her face was suddenly stony. “God knows, my father always did. Wives are far easier to replace than a good horse!”
Mrs. Ashley recoiled at this unexpected savagery, so uncalled for, so unkind!
“What a wicked thing to say, Your Grace. You must write at once and comfort him in his great sorrow.”
“I won’t—I don’t believe he needs it.”
“But, Your Grace!” Kat was appalled. “There must be a letter of condolence for decency’s sake!”
“Then write it yourself, for I’m damned if I will.”
Mrs. Ashley stiffened, curtsied formally and went to the door.
“Is that Your Grace’s final word on the subject?”
“It is!”
“Then I shall deal with the matter as I see fit.”
There was no reply from the bed and Kat went out of the room. Elizabeth waited until her indignant footsteps had died away and then unleashed the tears that threatened to choke her.
* * *
In the autumn Dr. Bill came down to Cheshunt, and was sufficiently concerned to recommend a complete change of scenery; but his visit and his vague diagnosis did little to disperse the rampant speculation about Elizabeth’s condition down in the Great Hall.
“It’s not a doctor she needs but a midwife—I never knew a pregnant woman yet that wasn’t cured by time—nine months to be exact!”
Oh yes, it was good to get away to Hatfield where her childhood attendants remained loyal and discreet. Change of scenery worked a remarkable change in Kat too. Once removed from the sharp eyes of her sister, the governess, an incurable romantic, found herself viewi
ng recent events in a very different light. So the Queen was dead—very sad, very tragic, of course, but women died in childbed every day and, really, it was an ill wind that blew no one any good. The fact remained that the Admiral was now free once more, to make the marriage he ought to have made in the first place. Certainly he was making tentative overtures in that direction.
“What a man,” said Kat indulgently. “Never a thought for convention. Imagine sending to know whether Your Grace’s buttocks have grown any less—you know what he means by that of course.”
“It hardly sounds like a proposal.” Elizabeth stabbed her needle into the embroidery frame and pushed it aside angrily.
“Don’t be coy,” said Kat archly. “Your old husband is free again and you know very well you may have him if you will.”
Elizabeth spat into the hearth.
“I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on earth. I’ve told you before, I don’t intend to marry anyone.”
“Oh, we’re not back to that old nonsense, are we?” Kat sighed. “I can’t understand you at all. He’s the noblest man unmarried in the land and you were always his first choice. You’d not deny it if the Protector and the Council gave their consent would you?—and you know you can trust me of all people with—” She glanced up, saw Elizabeth’s eyes fixed on her like the cold steel points of twin daggers, and subsided into uncomfortable silence.
It was not a restful silence and it grew oppressively; Kat crept out of the room to arrange a hot cordial, reflecting that it was impossible to know what to say for the best these days.
Elizabeth went to open the casement and lean out of the window, letting the sharp autumn air cool her flaming cheeks. Hatfield park spread beneath her, a rambling rustic solitude dotted with great oak trees. The night was black as pitch beyond the flickering lights of the old palace and somewhere in the graveyard stillness she heard an owl hoot.
So it was true then, this crazy whisper of marriage with him! How dared he even think of it? He must be mad to dream of uniting himself with a claimant to the throne beneath the Protector’s very nose, and she must be mad herself to listen. And yet she was listening—listening and blushing when she should be writing a furious letter denouncing him to the Council for his presumption.