Elizabeth (7 page)

They had come to the stretch of lawn beside the river bank, and in the shelter of a cherry tree, Dudley tried to take Elizabeth in his arms. To his surprise she pushed him back; she was much stronger than she looked.

“We came to talk,” she reminded him.

“We spend our lives in talking,” Dudley said impatiently. “We spend our time like puppets on a stage, living our lives before an audience. God knows it's seldom enough we are alone like this——Come to me, give me a few moments of joy, I beg of you!”

She shook her head and moved swiftly away to the edge of the river parapet so that he had to follow her.

“What will you do if Amy agrees to be divorced?” she said. “Tell me, Robert.”

He stood beside her, leaning against the rough stone, and gently put one arm around her shoulders.

“I'll set out to win the only woman in the world I want,” he answered. “And you know very well who that is.”

“Would you aspire to marry me, Robert?” She looked at him, her face very pale in the dim light, her eyes as black as the river which ran past their feet.

“I would, and I'll never rest until I do.”

“I am not to be taken by intrigue or force of arms,” her voice was a whisper. “Do not mistake me for a venture, Robert, and think in terms of power. Who gains me will never gain my throne. I have to tell you that.”

“There is no need,” Dudley told her quietly. “I told you before, I love the woman, not the Queen.”

She turned suddenly, and this time she came into his arms, one hand holding his cheek; gazing into the face bent over hers as if to read the same sincerity in the eyes as she heard in his voice.

“Do you really love me, Robert? Just for myself, and not for what I can give you?”

“More than my life,” he whispered, and in that moment when success seemed within reach, he had an odd suspicion that he meant what he said.

“If I were free, and I will be, I promise you, would you marry me?”

“I don't know.” She was staring past him, out over the shining Thames, beyond into the increasing darkness. “I don't know, Robert. I am afraid to marry. We stand here, you and I, talking of love, and have you ever thought who may have stood in this same spot and kissed and whispered, just as we are doing now?”

“No,” Dudley shook his head. He had no idea what she meant.

“My mother and father.”

The next moment she had stepped back from him, and there was something about her that stopped him from touching her.

“He was supposed to love her,” she said harshly. “He turned England upside down to marry her and then he cut her head off before I was three years old. That is what marrying for love has meant to me. God knows, perhaps, that's what marriage means itself, I can't be sure. I am sure about everything, Robert, everything in life that I want or must do, except this one thing that all men believe to be so easy for a woman. You ask me to marry you and I can't answer.”

“Yes, you can,” Dudley urged. “Banish your ghosts, Madam—banish your fears with them! Pity your mother if you wish, but for Christ's sake don't take her as an example.”

“I don't pity my mother,” Elizabeth interrupted; she was staring across the river, her face as hard and pale as stone in the light of the moon which had just risen. “She died a whore's death and that's all I know about her. I should never have spoken of this, even to you. And I never will again. I forbid you to speak of it either.”

“As you desire,” he answered quickly. “Let the dead rest; and let us talk of the living. Do you believe I love you?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth looked at him, and smiled almost wistfully. “I believe you love me as much as you know how to love, my Robert.”

“And knowing that, you cannot answer me, or give me any hope?”

“How can I promise anything, when you already have a wife?”

“But I am going to divorce Amy,” Dudley protested. “You know that, my beloved.”

“When you are free,” Elizabeth said, “it will be time to ask and the time for me to decide. And now you must take me back, Robert. We've been away too long already.”

It was nearly dawn and she had woken after three hours of restless sleep. Elizabeth pulled back one corner of the bed curtains; she could hear the snores of her ladies in the antechambers, and the rising birdsong outside her open windows. It was a sound she loved, the gentle twittering that grew into an excited welcome for the rising sun. A peaceful sound, happy and unaware that the day brought the human enemy out to hunt and took the hood off the deadly falcon's head.

She never used falcons; the falcon was her mother's favourite bird, a white falcon was her mother's crest. “She died a whore's death.” Those were her words to Robert when they were at Hampton a week ago, and she could not dismiss them from her mind. She had never mentioned Anne Boleyn to anyone before, not since the day she learnt the truth about her death and her alleged offences. She never wished to speak about her or think about her; there was no profit in the past once its initial lessons had been learnt. Learn by the mistakes of others and then forget who made them. Learn not to trust a man's love.

For all women were weak, and if she once surrendered her independence, she could never hope to get it back. Robert would try to dominate her—when she imagined that domination her feelings came close to hatred instead of love. She did not want to marry him, but she didn't want to lose him either, and she lay at Windsor, after yet another wretched night, cursing him and herself and wondering when he would return from seeing his wife, Amy Dudley. She was a foolish, unsophisticated girl who had never said anything but yes to her husband.
She
could not hinder Robert; he would come back to Court and the whole struggle must be fought again. Elizabeth leant back against her pillows. Her head ached; it always did when she was worried. She loved him in many ways, perhaps more than she would admit. He could give her the warmth, the laughter, the closeness which was essential to true happiness. Indeed he gave it already, as much as their irregular relationship allowed. And he would give her children, heirs to stabilize her throne.

“No woman is truly happy until she has borne children.”

She could hear Cecil saying that in his dry voice, urging her to marry the Spanish Archduke, or one of the Protestant German Princes who were suing for her hand. It amused her to hear him; she could never think of Cecil begetting anything with his dull wife except a Latin treatise.… He had not understood her mockery; he thought her unfeminine, because he was devoted to his family while she had as little faith in children as she had in men. Sons and daughters would only grow to envy each other and wish her dead so that they could inherit. She did not want Robert for children. She wanted Robert for her own sake, for her own happiness. But she did not want Robert as joint sovereign of England, and she knew in her heart that he would not be content with less. She did not want any human creature to partake in the power which was hers alone; the man who mounted a throne beside her would cease to be a husband and become a rival. That was another thing she knew Cecil did not understand when he preached of the joys of wifely functions, in relation to some man she had not seen and might not even like. He wasn't pleading Robert's case—no one pleaded that except Robert himself.… Cecil did not understand that there were human beings in whom the passion for power was far stronger than the lusts of the flesh and that she was one of them.

The sun was up, flooding into her bedroom. She reached out for her silver handbell and shook it. It must be half-past five and she had a mass of paperwork to attend to and a Council meeting after the morning service. Suddenly her head was clear and her heart light; she felt refreshed and eager at the prospect. The problem of marriage and Robert Dudley had ceased to exist.

Cumnor Hall had once been the property of the abbots of Abingdon, and the house and parklands had passed to the Crown when Henry VIII seized the monastic estates. It was not a large house, and showed little trace of its religious origins by the time Robert's treasurer Anthony Forster leased it for his own use. Shortly afterwards Robert had suggested that his wife, Lady Dudley, should make her home there until a permanent residence was chosen for her. It was typical of Amy that she agreed to be boarded out with friends and associates while her husband stayed in London, or wherever the Court happened to be. She had once suggested that he might bring her to the Court and present her to the Queen, but he had told her it was inconvenient because he had so many duties. That was a long time ago, and she had not asked again. As the time passed, rumours of his advancement reached the quiet backwaters where Amy lived, and there were occasional visits from Robert, who was always splendidly dressed and mounted and accompanied by a train of servants. The visits were not only infrequent but very short; they were only undertaken because of some business which could not be transacted by letter, for Amy had inherited several estates from her father, and Robert administered these and collected their revenues.

She had not seen him for six months when she received the letter advising her of his arrival. The few days before he came were spent in preparations; the best bedroom was aired and cleaned, sheets put on the double bed, food stocked into the larders, and Lady Dudley's modest wardrobe was inspected for her best dresses to wear in his honour. It was a pitiful attempt which deceived nobody, not even Amy. She had been ill with an abscess in her breast; this had mercifully broken, but she was pale and thin and burst into tears over her reflection when she saw it in the mirror. When they married, nearly ten years ago, she had been pretty, very pretty in a plump way, with soft fair hair and large eyes; the world had been a kind place, full of promise, and her husband had been desperately in love with her. During the endless evenings when she sat alone, and the longer nights when she sat up in bed, sewing because she could not sleep, Amy remembered their marriage and the first months of happiness which had suddenly declined, almost without warning, into the farce of their present life together. For nearly a year Robert had been in love with her, amused, protective and gay, and then, almost without transition, he was satiated and bored.

When she cried, it made him restless and drive him out hunting, or up to London, where his father, the Duke of Northumberland, was so powerful, and where he could amuse himself with women if he chose. Amy, who was not as simple as she seemed, knew very well that he did choose, and the jealousy which tormented her for the next nine years corroded her looks and downed her spirits.

He had left her to court Queen Mary's favour, and stayed on to establish himself with the new Queen, Elizabeth. And for over a year, Amy had been hearing rumours that Robert was the new Queen's lover. She had never taxed him with it; she had never dared. She only smiled nervously and chattered, and fidgeted; and made timorous overtures of affection which he pretended not to notice. She had no place in his life but the nominal position as his wife, and she only saw him when he wanted something, but at least she saw him, and for that she had begun to live, expecting nothing more.

She was waiting for him in the hall, wearing a dress of dark blue velvet which was six months behind the fashion, a collar of stiffened lawn framing her face, which was pinched and strained, and anxiously smiling. He saw her companion Mrs. Odingsell, standing in the background, the two Forsters, and another woman, Mrs. Owen, who had left her husband and attached herself to Lady Dudley. Robert kissed her cheek, greeted the others and in reply to Amy's question he explained brusquely that he was only staying for one night, and then went up to his room to wash and change his riding clothes.

They dined well that night; the conversation was rather forced, until Mrs. Odingsell asked questions about the Court. While Robert talked, his wife sat quietly, picking at the food on her plate, glancing up from time to time to see the animation in his face as he discussed the personalities whose names were famous, describing a ball or a brilliant masque, his eyes glittering whenever the name of the Queen was mentioned.

“Is she as beautiful as they say, my Lord?”

Robert smiled at that old harpy, Odingsell, sitting there with her mouth open like a seal, hungry for verbal scraps.

“Not beautiful, no. But more fascinating than any woman alive, I should say. Handsome, handsome as the devil, the best horsewoman, the best dancer—why, the best at everything, that's all I can tell you.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, broken by Mrs. Owen.

“Why, you've eaten nothing, my Lady! Try some of the chicken pasty—it's really excellent.”

“No thank you,” Amy smiled up at the plain, anxious face of the only real friend she had in the house. She was grateful to Beth Owen, who had repaid her shelter by countless acts of kindliness. “No, I'm not very hungry.”

“We're well buried here, my Lord,” Mrs. Owen said aggressively. “But even we heard rumours that the Queen is about to marry a foreign Prince. Is that true?”

“You are indeed buried, if that is the latest you know.” Robert's eyes considered his questioner with hostility. When he settled with Amy he'd make sure Madam Owen found another benefactress.…

“The Queen is besieged by suitors, and has rejected them all. And now, Madam,” he bowed to Amy, rising from the table.

“I know the company will excuse us. I have travelled far and I have many things to discuss with you, and not much time. We will see you tomorrow, ladies, and you, my good Forster. We must have a word about finance before I leave. Come to me in the gallery before noon.”

They went into the long, panelled room which had once been the Abbot's private chamber; the August light had faded, and a big iron candle branch burnt on either side of the fireplace. As she took her place in the chair opposite to him, Dudley noticed her dress trailing in a pool of half melted wax. She had always been a bad housekeeper, useless with servants, who either cheated and defied her or doted on her for the wrong reasons, extravagant over trifles, and maddeningly forgetful. The smooth running of Cumnor was due to Forster and his wife. They were a clever, efficient couple. He could trust Forster with anything.