Elizabeth (10 page)

No one could suggest a reason for such behaviour, except the sinister explanation that she intended to commit suicide. There was another explanation, which only Robert and his financial agent knew. Forster had told her that Robert was coming to discuss a reconciliation, but that his visit must be kept secret because of the Queen's jealousy. It was a condition of his coming that she should send everyone away. And while she waited for Dudley, Forster trapped her in the empty house. But the truth would never be known, for Forster remained in the background, while the crowd of women argued and contradicted and blamed each other, and Blount encouraged the God-sent rumour of suicide. From Richmond, Dudley wrote urging him to sift the matter to the bottom, confident that the truth was safe with Forster, and that whatever Blount discovered he would cover up by bribes. It was a clever move; it seemed as if Dudley were searching harder for the culprit, if there was one, than the Queen's justices. But in those few days he paced up and down his rooms at Richmond like a wild animal in a cage, unable to be near Elizabeth, whom he completely distrusted, forbidden to go down to Cumnor and take a hand in the enquiries himself or to see Forster or do anything, but trust to others. And if they failed him, if Forster had overlooked anything or Blount blundered, Elizabeth would sacrifice him on the altar of her own reputation. He knew that without any doubt, and the knowledge terrified him. Often he cursed her, often he spent hours remembering her half-promises, her kisses, her sudden spurts of sensual greed, the favour she showed him and the way she flaunted that favour in the faces of those who hated and opposed him most. And yet she had turned on him with the ferocity of a tiger, when she thought her own interests endangered. She had fondled his cheeks and caressed his hair and then told him that she would cut the head off his body. And meant it. She was not shocked by what she thought he had done to Amy; that was a revelation of her character. If he lost his life it would only be because he had involved the Queen in the crime.

He had to clear himself, once and for all; Blount must secure a verdict from the Abingdon jury which would remove suspicion from his name. He instructed him to take the dangerous course of approaching the jurors directly.

But Blount's efforts were in vain; so were his bribes. The jurors were countrymen who had known Amy Dudley well; her reputation for gentleness and charity defeated Robert's purpose. Yet rumours and suspicions were not enough to alter the known facts, and no proof of murder could be found. The most obvious verdict, and one which would have exonerated Dudley, was suicide. But the Abingdon jury refused to stain the memory of a popular and kindly lady, and thus condemn her to a suicide's unsanctified grave. They returned a verdict of death by misadventure. Robert's neck was safe, but he knew, when he received the news from Blount, that he would never be cleared of the suspicion.

On the 22nd of September Amy Dudley was buried at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford. Two days later, Robert received permission to return to Court.

Elizabeth put the Court into mourning for Amy Dudley; she denied herself the pleasures of dancing and music until after the funeral, and conducted her work with the Council in a tense and awkward atmosphere. Robert had been acquitted, and it was known that she intended to recall him. Cecil, after the initial outburst when he heard of the murder, now received her full confidence, but he was the only one who knew her mind. They had talked frankly, Elizabeth wondering as she did so how she could discuss the needs of her own nature with Cecil whom she had always considered sexless and dull. But she discovered that he understood the vagaries of human feelings as well as he did the policies of state. She wanted Robert back because she was unhappy and restless without him, and she had not found a replacement in his absence; she was not, she insisted, a wanton unable to forgo her lover, but a lonely and isolated woman who needed the attentions of a man. Cecil nodded; he asked her quietly how far that need would lead her, and she told him calmly, that it had reached its limit. Whatever people said or thought, she would as soon marry Dudley as her own Tower hangman, bloody hands and all. The world would accuse her of wanting marriage; it was already doing so, while Amy's body settled into its grave. But he had her word of honour that it was not so and never would be. She gave him her hand, on the evening Dudley returned and before she saw him, and Cecil kissed it gravely.

“Don't think too hardly of me,” she asked him.

It was extraordinary how she depended upon this curious, clerkly man, so humourless and pedantic and so brilliant.… It was extraordinary how close they had become in the last few weeks, when there was not a voice raised in her defence anywhere in her own kingdom or outside it.

“If I were a man, it would seem natural enough, Cecil.”

“Marriage is the only natural thing for women, Madam,” he said gently. “Until such time as it comes to you, and I pray to God it will before long, then this arrangement has my support if it makes you happy. Not the man; I don't trust him and I have never hidden that; but so long as he pleases you and keeps his place, I have no quarrel with him. But when the time comes to get rid of him, I shall be ready to do that too.”

“I'm sure you will,” Elizabeth laughed. “But I'm my father's daughter, Cecil. I do my own despatching. Try and quiet my Council; stop them chattering like a lot of old hens and tell them I am not one who thinks the world, or anything else, well lost for love.”

When he had gone she rang for her ladies. Kate Dacre and Robert's own sister Lady Mary Sidney came from the next room where they were always on call for the Queen's bell. She sat at her dressing table while Mary Sidney brushed and curled her hair and pinned it up in a net of silver thread sewn with pearls. She pointed to one of the armful of dresses Kate held out for her; it was a long stiff gown of black taffeta, with a velvet petticoat heavily embroidered in diamonds and silver. An eight-row collar of pearls as big as beans was fastened round her narrow neck, and shone in the hollows above her breast. She bit her lips while the two women pulled in her metal corselet until it pinched her waist to sixteen inches, and then stepped into the dress. When they had finished she looked at herself in the glass, watching her reflection, pale and aquiline, the red hair shining like fire through the silver net. She turned, and the jewels encrusting her dress flashed with a dozen lights. Robert said she was beautiful; there were moments when she was softened by flattery and believed him when he described the melting quality of her charms. But not now. The figure in the looking glass was brilliant, like an icicle, glittering, like a diamond, splendid and elegant and supremely Royal. But the rounded prettiness, the warm contours of womanly beauty were not hers. She picked up a long fan of white ostrich feathers, smoothing the plumes between her hands, imagining her meeting with Robert. He would be uneasy, prepared to be contrite or injured, whichever pose suited her mood the best; he would probably try to make love to her and she would enjoy repulsing him with scorn. She knew all about his frantic efforts to secure a favourable verdict over Amy's death. She smiled unkindly, thinking how he must have fingered his handsome neck while the issue was undecided. He had taken her for granted; he had thought that he knew her mind and could precipitate her into doing what he wanted on the strength of her moments of weakness with him. He had not know then that no one was her master because she was completely mistress of herself. But he knew now. He had escaped with his life and come hurrying back like a dog that hears its master's whistle. He would probably hate her for it; it would be the test of her power over him if she could hold him in spite of it, if she could reduce him and threaten him as she had done and show him that she was ready to throw him aside like a worn-down shoe and yet make him admit that he was nothing without her.

Elizabeth was too acute not to know that there was an element of fierce unkindness in her intentions for Robert, but not even she quite realized how close to submission she had come to him, and that this subconscious knowledge was the cause of her resentment and her determination to humiliate him. She only knew that he must be humbled, humbled more deeply than on the day when she tossed his love back in his face and threatened to execute him. Her love for him, her need or whatever it was, had brought her to the edge of catastrophe; she could not forgive herself for that, though she made light of it to Cecil. And she could not forgive Robert either—for killing his stupid wife and causing her this crisis, or for being so indispensable to her happiness that she had to recall him two days after the funeral.

“Mary, send your brother in to me. I feel I should comfort the grieving widower.”

Mary Sidney curtsied and then went quickly into the anteroom where Robert had been waiting for the past hour. He came to her and kissed her. He had always been fond of his sister in a selfish way, but they had become more intimate than at any time in their lives since they entered the Queen's service.

“She'll see you, Robert. But be careful, I beg of you.”

“How is she?” he asked. “What kind of reception will I get?”

Mary Sidney shook her head.

“A sharp one, I think. I don't know what she feels—you know her, it's impossible to know what she'll do or say from one moment to the next. But she's not trembling with anxiety to see you, I can tell you that. Step carefully; a wrong word now and she might banish you for good!”

Dudley's face darkened. “I've no need to be careful. I'm proved innocent; she owes
me
an apology after the way she treated me!”

“If you really mean that,” his sister whispered, “then turn round and get out of the Palace as fast as you can. Don't see her if you're not prepared to crawl upon your knees!”

His eyes narrowed, and then he shrugged and patted her shoulder.

“I've crawled before, Mary. I can do it again if I have to; we Dudleys have a great facility for starting on our knees and ending head and shoulders above everybody else.”

He turned away and walked towards the room where Elizabeth was waiting.

CHAPTER FIVE

At dusk on the 14th of August, 1561, a galley moved slowly out of the mouth of Calais harbour, its oars dipping in the grey seas, a light wind whipping the white pennants, and the Standard with the arms of France flying from the masthead. It was a French ship, its graceful hull painted a dazzling white, its poop-deck gilded and hung with velvet awnings, and at the poop-rail the Dowager Queen of France stood staring out through her tears at the receding coastline of the country where she had spent her childhood and known her happiest years.

Mary Stuart was eighteen years old, but she had been Queen of Scotland since childhood. Queen of a wild and barren country where her father's death had begun a long and savage civil war. The little Queen was sent to her mother's home in France for safety, while her mother had remained behind to struggle with the rebels. Mary had seen very little of her mother. She remembered her as a very tall woman with a commanding presence, a typical Frenchwoman of a militant courageous character, as proud and ambitious as all the family of Guise who were virtually rulers of France.

Mary had been very happy in France; she grew up in an atmosphere of indulgence and admiration as her grace and charm outstripped her years. She was an exquisite child and she became a beautiful girl, gay, quick tongued, supremely sure of herself. There was no reason for self-doubt when every person said how fascinating she was and every mirror bore them out. She was feted and spoiled by her uncles, the Cardinal Prince, the Grand Chancellor, the immensely powerful Duc de Guise, and dozens of other relatives, all of them rich and influential. Mary's was a world of music and enjoyment, of hunting and dancing and learning the arts required of a Princess already gifted with every personal and material advantage.

When she married, she married the future King of France, and her sickly young husband spoilt and indulged her as completely as her uncles. Unlike most egotists, Mary was naturally kind. She pitied the boy, so obviously wasting with disease and hurrying his end in the effort to ride as well as his bride, to dance and feast until the small hours, buoyed up by the hope that he would one day consummate his marriage. But he came to the throne and died within a year, and his widow was still a virgin. She wept for a companion, almost a brother; but she knew nothing of him as a husband, and in her heart she had never wanted to find out. If she was kindly, she was also infamously proud; proud of her splendid birth, proud of her health in an age when so many were as delicate as her poor Francis, proud of her good looks and her countless friends. Whatever she wished for, God placed in her lap; she had been brought up in the unshakeable conviction that her right was to rule over kingdoms as well as men's hearts, and the kingdom which attracted her most was the one possession which had been withheld from her so far.—She was also the rightful Queen of England, a far brighter prize than the damp, insolvent Scottish inheritance which she could only remember with difficulty.

Her young husband had repeatedly promised to get England for her and to lay it at her feet as the supreme tribute of the love he had been incapable of expressing in a normal way. Mary had dreamed of that entry into London at the head of an army of Frenchmen and loyal English Catholics. In her youth and assurance she spoke of Elizabeth Tudor with contempt; she and her friends made fun of the usurper sitting, as they imagined, so insecurely on her throne. Mary had quartered the English arms and styled herself Queen of England while she lived in the gilded security of France. And then, suddenly, Francis died. She was no longer Queen of France, merely a widow with a hostile mother-in-law, who had made life so uncomfortable that Mary turned with gratitude to Scotland. Scotland might be unknown, but at least she would be Queen in her own right instead of a cypher in the Court where her young brother-in-law Charles was King and the Dowager Queen Catherine de' Medici enjoyed the power. Mary was naturally courageous. Life had never taught her to be frightened of anything or anyone, or presented her with a problem which her own charm and her family's influence could not easily overcome.