Elizabeth (32 page)

The Countess described her passion for clothes and the outrageous fashions she adopted; she made fun of Elizabeth's musicianship, her dancing, her habits at the table, and most of all, her flirtations with the men at her Court. Leicester was an old scandal; she no longer allowed him to come into her room and help her with her underclothes, but she shut herself up with Sir Christopher Hatton and indulged in practices which the Countess hesitated to describe. But she overcame her diffidence and laughed outright when she saw the Queen of Scotland blushing.

“And now,” she said, “she has taken M. Simier as her new playfellow. If you can imagine a woman so depraved, Madam, that she misconducts herself with the man sent to negotiate her marriage!”

“I can't,” Mary said coldly. She could not imagine any woman wanting the physical attentions of a man. She wondered whether Elizabeth's disgusting appetites might have been checked had she been shut up in that room in the keep at Dunbar Castle when Bothwell came.… She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to dismiss the memory. He was dead; he had gone mad in his prison and spent the last years of his life chained like an animal to a stone pillar, pacing up and down in his own excrement, tearing at his flesh and raving about the past. She had loved him and then hated him as bitterly as she knew he had hated her, but she could never imagine the agonies of that terrible imprisonment without being glad that for his own sake he had escaped from his torment in death.

So many men she knew had died; the power they had wrested from her had brought death to her brother James, to the Earl of Lennox, Darnley's father, to Lord Mar, who was poisoned by his successor Morton. She could see Morton at that moment, standing beside her with his pistol pressed into her side the night they murdered Rizzio, looking like an incarnation of the Devil with his red hair and beard and his eyes blazing with blood-lust and hatred. He was still Regent of Scotland, tutoring her miserable little son in the heretic religion and teaching him to revile his mother's memory. Morton had survived, but the others had paid their debt to her like Bothwell. She nodded while Lady Shrewsbury went on talking; she was telling her how the Frenchman, Simier, had begun the negotiations for the marriage of the Duc d'Alençon by behaving as if he were the suitor.

“He's an ugly little creature, but she's so vain she couldn't resist flattery from a monkey! He writes her love-notes every day and sends her presents and sighs and dances attendance morning, noon and night. By God, they say in London that if any man can bring her to marriage it's this one—he's playing the lover so skilfully that when they substitute that pockmarked Alençon, she's so bemused she'll hardly notice.”

“I think it's all a trick,” Mary said. “I don't believe my cousin will marry anyone, she's far too wise. And too old,” she added. “At forty-five she has no hope of bearing children, and that would be the only reason for a match. She has left it too late to disinherit me by that means. The French are being duped, my dear Countess, and God knows I've written telling them so often enough!”

The Countess was not interested in politics and she could see that Mary was about to change the conversation from the topic of Elizabeth's sexual indiscretions to her political motives. She did not like Mary; she only talked to her because it gave her a feeling of superiority to entertain her with scandal, and to revile the other Queen whom she hated because she was actually afraid of her.

She was fundamentally jealous of any woman who was young and still as beautiful as Mary Stuart and capable of rousing sparks of chivalry in her own dull husband. She could see the signs of depression which afflicted Mary sometimes for days and if she was going to sit there and weep and talk about her own tiresome and hopeless fortunes, the Countess was not going to keep her company.

“If you will excuse me, Madam, I have letters to write.”

“Of course.” Mary managed to smile at her. She was sick of the creature, sick of her loud laughter and her revolting tongue. She would be glad to be alone. The Countess curtsied and went out.

The room was very quiet; her little spaniel lay stretched out in front of the fire asleep, and the panel of embroidery she had been working on for months was just out of her reach. She was too tired to get up and fetch it, and disinclined to disturb her lady-in-waiting, Mary Seton, who was resting in another room. Seton had been with her all through these weary years, sharing the discomforts and the frustrations of her imprisonment, ready to console and encourage her and nurse her when her health broke down and her spirits failed. Men had betrayed and exploited her, but women, like Seton, and the others who looked after her, had shown nothing but unselfish loyalty and love.

It would be Easter soon. Another year had passed, less rigorous than the previous two, but paralysed by inactivity. She was well housed, and she enjoyed the benefits of her French dowry so that she lacked nothing that money could buy, and her gaolers were generous. She had women to care for her and a secretary to help with the correspondence which occupied most of her time. She read and wrote and sewed and prayed and the days ran into one another followed by months and the long, dragging years, and she only lived on her hopes and her resurgence of energy to try and procure her own release and the restoration of her power. Without that objective, she would probably have died, or lost her mind like Bothwell. It was a temptation to live in the past, however terrible it had been, and she was only saved from completely retreating into it by her obstinate obsession with the future. She was still in her thirties and she was still alive. France would not help her, because French interests were involved in this matrimonial farce which was taking place in London; but there was always Spain. She wrote frequently to the King of Spain, urging him to act on the Papal sentence and come to her rescue. Spain was her principal hope, and the sympathy of the persecuted English Catholics was the second. Someone would rescue her; if she had managed to touch the hearts of Scotsmen in her adversities, if she could soften Shrewsbury and win over the English servants in his household so that they went out of their way to do her little services, then some day a man bold enough and strong enough would be found to release her.

She looked up at the sound of a knock.

She called out, and the door opened; it was Shrewsbury's ward, Anthony Babington. He was a slight, gentle youth of sixteen, fair-haired and blue-eyed, and he was always finding an excuse to come to her rooms. Mary smiled at him.

“Come in,” she said. “What can I do for you, Master Babington?”

In many ways he reminded her of that other youth, Willie Douglas; he had the same shy way of looking at her, and the same habit of blushing when she spoke to him. The old Earl and the beardless boy, suffering the pangs of calf-love—they were the sum total of her champions.

“I came to see if you wanted anything, Madam.”

The Babingtons were an old and wealthy Catholic family; rich enough to survive the fines levied on them for their religion and wise enough to avoid political activity.

“There's nothing I need, thank you.”

Anthony Babington came closer, hoping for an invitation to sit down. Sometimes the Queen let him sit by her and asked him questions about himself. Once he had found her crying, and lain awake for nights imagining how, if he were older, he might have taken her in his arms and comforted her and told her that he had arranged for her escape. The imagery was so real that the boy had almost felt the wind whipping his face as they rode away from Sheffield to join the army he had raised for her defence. In his waking dream, Mary rode pillion behind him with her arms round his waist.

“I could exercise the dog, Madam, if you liked.”

She smiled and shook her head. “He's comfortable as he is; the snow is thick outside. He might take cold and so might you. But if you want to do me a service, move my embroidery frame over here.”

She changed the thread in her needle, and held out her hand for the silks. For a moment their fingers touched and she felt that Babington's were trembling.

“You are very kind,” she said gently. “I would ask you to keep me company but I know that Lady Shrewsbury is uneasy if you see too much of me. You are young yet, Master Babington, but I would not be the cause of trouble to you. Next time, you can stay a little if you like.”

He went down on his knee beside her, and on an impulse, Mary gave him her hand.

“If ever you want me, Madam, if there is anything I can do for you now—any letters or messages or anything, you have only to ask. I am your servant for as long as I live. And one day, I swear before God, I will do you a real service.”

She felt the pressure of a warm and clumsy kiss upon her hand, and then he turned away quickly and rushed out of the room.

Jehan de Simier released the Queen of England's hand. Whenever he kissed it he lingered; he knew how to change an act of homage into a caress. When he looked into the face of Elizabeth he conveyed his wish that he might have been kissing her mouth instead. He was short and he was ugly, but his irregular features and his bright black eyes were an essential part of the peculiarly aggressive virility which he possessed. He was a wit and a courtier, with exquisite manners, but everything about him suggested a man of fierce sexuality and reckless temper. He had been sent to England to persuade a hesitating woman to marry his master Alençon, and he proceeded as if he were suing for himself.

He had been prepared to flatter a middle-aged spinster who was pretending to virginal scruples which disguised a scandalous past, but within a few days he had changed his opinion and his approach. The Queen of England was unique. She was not a beauty, but she was handsome; she had a mind as sharp as any man's, relieved by streaks of outrageous femininity. She looked at him and through him as if she could see exactly the kind of man he was, and did not mind. He spent his first audience telling her that Alençon was madly in love with her, and ended by saying boldly that he was falling a victim to her charms himself.

Elizabeth had laughed in his face. He would never forget that laughter; it was full of mockery and full of provocation. He had opened the campaign on personal grounds, and she challenged him to win it on the same level if he could.

“If you were the suitor, M. Simier, I should feel myself in terrible danger.”

“If it were I, Madame,” he retorted, “you would have married me two months ago.”

She had given a reception at Hampton Court, and they were sitting side by side in the Long Gallery, watching her ladies and gentlemen in waiting dancing a pavan. Elizabeth moved her feather fan in time to the music. Her dress was white, and her shoes and underskirt were scarlet satin; she wore a necklace of enormous rubies and pearls, and a bandeau on her hair covered in the same jewels. The hair was a wig; her own was greying and brittle, the result of years of crimping with hot irons. Her lips were painted red, and her thin brows outlined with pencil. In his first report back to Alençon, Simier had remarked on the whiteness of her skin and the slender proportions of her figure. She was almost too thin for his taste. He often wondered about the old scandals of her entertaining the Earl of Leicester wearing nothing but an open dressing robe. She neither looked nor talked like a wanton, but there was no curiosity and no hypocrisy in her eyes when he made physical advances to her. If the improbable happened and she married Alençon, she might be a technical virgin, but Simier knew that such women devoured their men in the act of submission. It was a pity, he thought privately, that he was not the bridegroom instead of the proxy. She would never be happy unless she was mastered, and he had never failed except once. He had failed with his wife with whom he had foolishly fallen in love and even more foolishly treated with gentleness and indulgence. As a result the lady had betrayed him with his brother. Simier had avenged his honour by having his brother murdered and poisoning his wife. The Queen of England knew that too, and there was no shadow of surprise or revulsion in her eyes when he paid her compliments and caressed her hand with his lips.

“Will you dance with me, Madam?” he asked her. He had seen the Earl of Leicester watching him, his jealousy showing plainly on his face. He had made the same request and been refused a few minutes before.

Elizabeth glanced at him and smiled. The smile was mocking. “You are quite determined to make enemies of all my nobles, aren't you, Simier? If I dance with you, I shall offend all those I have refused.”

“If I can succeed where they fail, that's their misfortune. They must stomach me, if they're going to stomach my master.”

“
I
am the one who must stomach him, and I've been queasy all my life. Come then; play the proxy for him, but I warn you, I expect perfection in my partners.”

It was another challenge, and Simier met it confidently. They moved into the centre of the floor, and the rest of the dancers drew back to watch. He was a magnificent dancer; graceful and light, he moved like a fencer, and he was thankful because Elizabeth was the most accomplished performer he had ever seen. For a quarter of an hour they moved and twisted in the intricate figures of the pavan, and the Long Gallery was silent. No one coughed or spoke; there was only the sound of their own steps on the polished floor and the sad, stately music coming from the musicians' gallery. At the end the Queen sank into a deep curtsy, and he went down on his knee to kiss her hand.

When they rose the Court began to applaud. As he led Elizabeth back to her chair he found the Earl of Leicester standing by it.

“The ‘Bear' looks as if he's been baited,” he murmured, referring to the Englishman by his motto. He knew that Leicester hated him; one adventurer soon smelt out another, and the favourite was afraid.

“He also has a ‘ragged staff',” Elizabeth reminded him. “Take care he doesn't strike you with it.”