by Susan Kay
“Did I say it would be fitting?”
“Admirably suited—your very words, my dear.”
“Oh, good God, man, do I really need to elaborate further?”
The Duke flushed, like a schoolboy who has been rapped across the knuckles for daydreaming.
“No,” he said grimly, and went over to his desk to write out the order. “You don’t need to do that. I take your meaning.”
* * *
Across the darkening room the eyes of Elizabeth Tyrwhitt met those of Elizabeth Tudor like a clash of swords.
“I don’t recognise you as my governess, madam, and I will not obey you. I will have no other governess but Mrs. Ashley.”
Lady Tyrwhitt bridled like an angry tabby cat.
“This is a fine welcome, madam!”
“Were you expecting one?”
“I can tell you here and now that this post was no choice of mine. But I am commanded here by the Lords of the Council and I expect you to accept my services thankfully.” You will be sorry if you don’t! added the stony-grey eyes.
Elizabeth clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms to prevent herself from bursting into angry, frightened tears.
“I have not so demeaned myself that the Council needs to put any more governesses over me.”
“I regret to say that is open to question. And having been governed by such a person as Mrs. Ashley I’m sure you need not be ashamed to have any honest woman in that place.”
The room was darkening towards evening and a thin blinding rain obscured the tall windows. Elizabeth swung round upon Sir Robert who was skulking by the hearth, trying to pretend he had no part in this dispute.
“Sir, the world will take it as proof of my guilt if I am appointed a new governess so quickly. I shall be condemned as a great criminal. Is that what the Council wish?”
“Your age and danger considered it is best for you to have one without an hour’s delay,” the gentleman orated pompously. He looked at her sharply and added in a feeling tone, “By God, madam, if I had my way you would have two!”
“I shall remember that,” she said coldly and walked out of the room without their leave.
Lady Tyrwhitt stared at the closed door and exploded with rage.
“Oh, she’ll remember that, will she? When she’s Queen no doubt! Good God, she needs a governess to teach her manners! The brazen little bitch—I remember her at Chelsea, tossing her head at the Admiral and breaking that poor woman’s heart. I never could understand why the Queen allowed it to go on for so long.”
Sir Robert tossed another log on the fire and eased himself stiffly into a chair. It was hard work grinding down the Princess’s spirit and he had had a long weary day of it.
“I’ve had a great deal to put up with,” he complained. “Even the Council have no real idea what it’s been like. I can tell you, Bess, I’m worn out by this whole business.”
“Oh, you!” sniffed his wife officiously. “You’ve been too soft with her, I’ve said so all along. It’s time we took off the velvet gloves and tightened the vice—let her know how badly things are going for the Admiral. There’s more than one way to kill a cat—but then men are no good at this. At least the Council had the sense to see it in time. I’m here to succeed where you’ve failed, Robert. One week, that’s all I’ll need with the little madam and she’ll be only too ready to talk. You see if I’m not right.”
* * *
Lady Tyrwhitt settled to her appointed task with a will. She haunted her charge day and night like a malicious shadow, taunting and insinuating, belitttling her servants whom she vigorously defended, and the Admiral of whom she dared not even speak. Lady Tyrwhitt saw that that was the note to hammer home and her low spiteful voice ranted out, spitting filth and venom against him until the last thread of Elizabeth’s steely control gave way and she flew out suddenly in his defence, declaring that she would never believe he was a traitor.
“Your Grace’s opinion carries no weight,” sneered the older woman. “All the houses of the Lord Admiral have been sold and his servants are dispersed. His guilt is obvious to all.”
“But not yet proven,” said Elizabeth on a gasp. “They haven’t dared to bring him to trial yet, have they?”
Lady Tyrwhitt smiled contemptuously.
“Your Grace’s innocence astounds me. Surely you know that an Act of Attainder can be passed against him without the necessity of open trial.”
Elizabeth stared at her, appalled.
“The King would never allow—”
“The King will see justice done, against his own kin if need be! Uncles, sisters—none are above a charge of treason and they will answer as any other subject. Know this for sure, my lady—it will be the axe for him in the end. He has no hope left in this world.”
From the doorway the new governess watched as Elizabeth sat down at the table where the morning meal had been served. She sat for a long time, white-faced, staring at nothing, then at last pushed her plate away untouched. When the same thing happened at dinner and supper, Lady Tyrwhitt reported that she was making progress and Sir Robert wrote triumphantly to inform the Council: “She begins now to droop a little.”
But neither spiritual harassment nor physical weakening loosened her tongue. She remained silent until the day she finally sat down and wrote the letter which defeated the Protector as surely as if she had dealt him a knife blow. She demanded that a royal proclamation should be issued throughout the land, clearing her good name. If she did not receive it she would be ashamed to ask it again, “because I see you are not well minded toward it.”
It was a bold personal accusation and the Protector wilted beneath it, knowing he had no option now but to capitulate to her demand. She was appealing to her greatest strength, the goodwill of the English people, and he dared not enter a contest against her on those terms in the absence of any firm evidence with which to convict her of treason. He could not fight her any longer, incredible though it seemed that a girl of fifteen should take on the entire strength of the government and win. He issued that proclamation as meekly as if he had received a royal command and silenced his wife, for the first time in their married life, with no more than a look.
Elizabeth received news of her victory in silence. She had saved her life. All that remained now was to wait for the act which would rob it of all meaning.
The Bill of Attainder had been passed against the Admiral and he had faced thirty-three separate charges, many of them so petty that it was a wonder they dared even to write them. But she knew his end could not be long delayed. The Tyrwhitts had said there was no hope of a reprieve.
In the still silence of her room her affection for Kat was now the only thing which goaded her into activity. She sat and wrote to the Council a long desperate letter pleading for the governess’s life and freedom “because she has been with me a long time and has taken great pains to bring me up in honesty and learning…”
She stared at that line and bit her lip, remembering with anguish just how great those pains had been, how lucky she had been to be cared for by a woman whose heart was twice the size of her brain.
On and on scratched her pen across the sheet of paper that blurred before her eyes. Her head hammered from lack of sleep and her mind reached out desperately to the one for whom she must not plead, clinging to the last blind hope, which he also must cling to, that the little King, his nephew and friend, would save him.
But if the eleven-year-old boy felt anything he gave no sign. He attended to his common round of business and pleasure and authorised the Admiral’s execution with the absolute indifference he might have been expected to show at the extermination of a rat. He was disciplined, self-contained, and unemotional, a credit to his teachers, a model of virtue; and a travesty of a child. The malleable boy had been transformed into a pretentious little prig, overburdened with the weight of hi
s own royal dignity and unhealthily preoccupied with the spiritual welfare of his people. Under the guardianship of the Lord Protector, Edward had gained stature and lost humanity; and no one was more shocked than Elizabeth to witness the result. She knew, in her own heart, that her brother would have authorised her execution, had it come to it, as easily as he had authorised the Lord Admiral’s—to whom he had also owed love and loyalty. It was chilling knowledge from which grew the principles that were to rule the rest of her life: love no one, trust no one, for all affection is false.
The terse, cold comment which would guarantee life to herself and her servants lay unfurled in her mind like an open scroll. For thirteen endless days she waited for the moment to use it, but beyond that moment her mind was a dull blank.
She sat alone at her writing desk staring into the fire until at last her eyes were too heavy to stay open. Her head slipped down on to her satin sleeve and she fell asleep, plunging down, down into an endless dark corridor where there was no hope of light. She was alone, more alone than she would be even in her coffin, surrounded by the darkness, sobbing for Kat. But no one came, no one would ever come.
It was wet on the floor where she huddled. She put out her fingers and felt the wetness. It was warm to her touch, viscid, somehow familiar.
Blood!
She recoiled and began to scrabble in the darkness, seeking escape. And then her fingers, clawing outwards, touched the object that lay across her path and she saw where all the blood had come from. There was no light, but she saw his dismembered head—bleeding a river to drown her!
A log fell into the hearth and she started awake with a strangled gasp, listening to her own heartbeat drumming wildly in her ears. The door behind her opened and as she looked round unwillingly. Lady Tyrwhitt’s personal maid bobbed an insolent curtsey.
“Sir Robert requests your presence in the Great Hall, madam.”
Elizabeth rose from her chair in a numb daze and somehow the dark little room swam away, exchanged itself for the broad stairway and the great panelled chamber which was full of Tyrwhitt’s people. There was some muted whispering and nudging as she crossed slowly to the hearth where Sir Robert and his wife stood in gloating triumph. They described the Lord Admiral’s execution in meticulous detail, hoping to shock a response that would justify their wasted weeks of persecution. But she had already lived through every step of this, every look and gesture and word. Her eyes met theirs in a steady unwavering stare and her hard little voice rang clearly through the cold air.
“Today died a man of much wit, but very little judgement.”
She felt the ripple of astonishment from the intently listening audience behind her, saw the Tyrwhitts glance at each other in shock, indignation, and disbelief at her callousness. But it did not matter; nothing mattered now. She had fought for her life and the lives of her servants and she had won. Now it seemed there was nothing left worth fighting for and the angry spirit which had sustained her through her ordeal went out, like a candle in her mind, leaving her cold and empty and totally spent.
They went on talking to her, asking questions, but their words had lost the power to hurt. She found it difficult to concentrate on them, for a numb exhaustion had closed in around her, shutting her off from that world of mouthing dolls which suddenly seemed so absurdly shrunken and insignificant. Like a beleaguered castle her mind was husbanding its resources, boarding every window, locking every door, shutting down unnecessary functions.
She went upstairs slowly and found her old nurse, Blanche Parry, waiting for her. It was the first time since the arrival of Tyrwhitt that she had seen any of her own servants, but now she looked at the woman blankly, almost without recognition. She allowed herself to be undressed and put to bed without argument.
And that was the last she remembered for a long, long time.
Chapter 7
In Hatfield park the old palace stood silent in the pale spring sunlight. The courtyards had been empty for weeks now, and in the stables Elizabeth’s favourite gelding tossed his head and whinnied his protest at his mistress’s continued absence. Grooms exercised him now, once a day, careless young lads who were paid to do it and never stroked his nose or brought him fresh apples. His eyes were dull and sad, and his coat was beginning to lose some of its satin sheen.
“Reckon he’s pining,” said one of the older hands, and at that everyone in the stable glanced furtively up at the red brick mansion and away again, before going silently about their duties once more.
Inside the house, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt said, “I quite agree, Mistress Parry, it’s gone on long enough. I shall send to London at once,” and stormed down the turret staircase to his own apartments.
“Well?” said his wife, rising from the window-seat, a shade less composed than usual. “What do you think, Robert?”
Tyrwhitt shut the door with a bang; on his face was the blustering belligerence of a very frightened man.
“I think,” he said unpleasantly, “that if we’re not very careful now, you and I are likely to be facing a hanging mob.” He took an angry turn up and down the room, then paused to add peevishly, “Of course, if I’d had my way I’d have sent for Dr. Bill long ago—but, oh no, you knew best, you were the expert. Nothing to worry about, you said, she’s only sulking, she’ll get over it. And now—God’s blood, woman—she’s like a skeleton.”
“I can’t force her to eat,” said his wife defensively. “I’m not to blame if she wants to starve herself.”
“Yes—well, you tell that to the Protector and see what he has to say if she dies on him, a few bare weeks after the people have been told she’s innocent. We’re responsible for her—a perfect pair of scapegoats, don’t you see it? I can tell you this, if the worst happens you and I won’t be able to show ourselves in London for a very long time. It will probably cost me my seat on the Council—”
Lady Tyrwhitt was pale and shaken as she went to the table and set out pen and ink and a sandcaster.
“You’d better write then,” she said and sat down anxiously beside him to watch.
* * *
The Protector reacted to the news of Elizabeth’s grave condition with alarm and cast about frantically for anything that might hasten her recovery, sending his personal physician, a host of kind wishes, and a letters patent guaranteeing her estates and income.
The death of his brother had seriously damaged his standing with the common people, who had previously fallen into the habit of calling him “the Good Duke.” There were rumours of unrest all over the country and he was aware of John Dudley’s increasing influence at the council table. Certainly, if he was to have any hope of outriding the opposition gathering steadily against him, the girl’s death was the last thing he wanted on his hands.
When the trim, dapper little figure of his personal physician was shown into his private study, he was waiting at his desk with ill-concealed anxiety. He waved irritably as the doctor prefaced business with a courtly bow and correct inquiries after his own health.
“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with me, man!” He gnawed his lip and gestured the physician into a chair. “What news from Hatfield?”
Dr. Bill leaned back in his chair and examined his master shrewdly. The Duke was pale and strained and obviously nervous; he did not believe that statement that all was well.
“Don’t sit there gawking—get on with it. I’m a busy man—a very busy man. You know that.”
The doctor cleared his throat and looked ill at ease.
“My lord will recall that I attended the Princess in the autumn. Since that time circumstances—unhappy circumstances—have exacerbated her condition to a serious degree. It was most unfortunate—” He broke off abruptly under the Protector’s icy glance.
“Most unfortunate that I was obliged to execute her lover!” snapped the Duke in furious interruption. “Well, it wasn’t a move which gave me any particular pleasur
e either, contrary to public opinion. And I don’t want your moral judgement, merely your professional opinion on the girl’s health—so stop your damned hedging and come out with what you think.”
“My lord—” The doctor hesitated. “My lord, I anticipate neither a swift nor complete recovery.”
The Duke swallowed and found his throat as dry as a bone. His hand fumbled out absently to a flagon of wine but he lacked the concentration to pour it.
“God’s blood!” he muttered feverishly. “Are you trying to say you expect her to die?”
“I am trying to say, my lord,” replied the doctor defensively, “that it is possible.”
The Protector leapt to his feet suddenly and began to stalk wildly about the room as though rapid movement might prevent this unwelcome news from catching up with him.
At last he burst out angrily, “But she’s young—she’s strong—three times as healthy as her brother, or her sister for that matter. And nobody dies these hard days of a broken heart, least of all a Tudor, a heartless, self-sufficient brood if ever I saw one.” He stopped and looked accusingly at the man opposite. “So what possible reason can you give me for such an extreme forecast?”
“My lord, she has lost interest in all that life has to offer. Unless she can be aroused from her melancholy she will simply slip away—I would stake my entire career on it.”
The Duke sat down abruptly and chewed his thumbnail.
“If this gets out among the common people it will finish me—God knows, as it is there could be revolt at any moment.” He clenched his fist and then suddenly banged it on the table with a peevish blow that made all his papers jump and scatter. “Well—you’re the physician, God damn you, suggest a cure! What else do I pay you for?”
“My lord—return her governess and steward without delay. That is all I can suggest.”
The Duke frowned at his inkwells. After a moment he said in a slow, puzzled tone, “I should have thought they were the last people she would want to see again.”