But he had to attend to the restive Queen, who had shied again, all but galloped away.
‘How can I face the Council? Gardiner keeps urging that the country will never accept a foreigner, willingly. Englefield has said definitely that Courtenay is the only possible marriage for me; Walgrave says that if I marry Philip it will mean war with France; Wotton writes from abroad that the French are doing all they can to prevent it. If the two great Catholic powers are at war, how can we hope to preserve the true Church?’
Renard stiffened and withdrew his hand. ‘I am amazed, Madam, that you can allow your subjects to command your choice. Are you really going to let them force you into marriage with your servant?’
‘No, oh no. I have no liking for Courtenay, though some pity. But I do not want to give my word to Spain until I am sure that I can abide by it. I do not wish to be thought inconsistent,’ she added pleadingly, all too aware from Renard’s face what his own thoughts were on the matter. ‘I believe,’ she said timidly, ‘that I will agree to the proposal, I cannot say more now or I shall burst into tears.’
‘And I believe I understand what that means.’ Renard’s tone was arch but tenderly soothing.
It unloosed the tears, and with them a torrent of words. ‘I have not slept since the Emperor’s letters came. All through the night I have wept and prayed for guidance, argued with myself, weighing all that others have said against my own heart – for always my heart has been with Spain. I was betrothed as a child to its Emperor – for years I thought I was to return to the country of my own dear mother, sacrificed here in England. Only Spain then tried to protect her – only her nephew the Emperor and his ambassador then offered me sanctuary. Oh, those black nights when I tried to escape! – I waited shivering on the riverbank for the boat that should take me away from prison, and worse, from perjury – from the dangers that threatened my body, from the false prophets that would blind my soul – to be safe in Spain. I shall never go there now.
‘But now the Emperor offers me another sanctuary, his son may come from Spain to save me yet. I have kept myself, as my mother urged me in the very last letter she ever wrote me, from even wanting the love of a man, for well she knew it would not be possible for me to have it with honour. In that at least I have kept faith with her. It is not in any loose desire that I now long for a husband, but because I do not know how to order my affairs without his help and advice. I have no one to whom I dare even speak of them, except yourself. I can bear no more questions and arguments. Let us pray to God to show us what is right – pray now, here, to the Holy Sacrament.’
She turned towards the alcove where the Sacrament bad been placed on her little prie-dieu with a lamp burning before it, its yellow light flickering on the hollows of her eyes, on the tragic downward curves of her pale lips that now moved in the ancient rhythm of the Latin hymn, ‘Veni, Creator Spiritus.’ Renard knelt too, and presently there was silence.
Did she hear God speak in the silence? He felt cold, uneasy; the taste of all be had said turned sour in his mouth. What if he should now say aloud, ‘Don’t! Don’t listen. It is only your own voice that you hear.’
He did not say it. He remained piously upon his knees.
She rose and came to him and held out her hand. ‘I believe that God, Who has worked such miracles for me, has given me word here in the presence of the Sacrament to be Prince Philip’s wife. I promise to love him perfectly. You need not fear that I will change my mind again. It will never change.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Elizabeth had won. Mary had at last graciously allowed her sister to leave London, and as though it were merely to satisfy her desire for rural solitude.
So now the sisters met to say goodbye.
Seventeen years stood between them, but it might have been a century. Both were aware of the enormous gulf in time; Elizabeth knew she would have to choose and comb her words as though to her grandmother; Mary felt how hard and baffling were these young women of the modern generation, so terrifyingly self-assured. Elizabeth looked so neat and well groomed with her hair strained back under the absurd little riding-cap as flat as a plate on top of her high bold clever forehead where the fashionably plucked eyebrows made two thin half-moons. Her waistcoat was buttoned up tight to her throat; a narrow double ruffle of white lawn billowed crisply out from the high collar and at the close-fitting wrists of her sleeves. She wore no earrings, no rings, and carried a handkerchief twisted round her fingers (was it to refute Mary’s accusation of showing off her hands?).
She looked so young, spruce, new-minted, as though she would never remember, never regret, never weep nor wish for impossible things, never sap her taut vigorous life in all the useless ways that Mary had done. ‘She thinks me a muddle-headed old maid,’ thought Mary, and it was no consolation that she thought Elizabeth a brazen young adventuress.
She sought to retrieve her superiority by a spate of parting presents. This was by Renard’s instructions, but it was also her natural outlet, the act in which she had taken her most spontaneous pleasure since her starved girlhood.
‘The year is going fast,’ she said, ‘and soon we shall have Christmas upon us before we know where we are. You must let me give you my Christmas presents now.’
The first one was embarrassing; it was a book of gold with a diamond clasp containing the miniature portraits of Henry VIII and Queen Katherine of Aragon. Had Mary chosen this deliberately to put her yet again in her place? But her manner gave no hint of it, she seemed to think Elizabeth should be as pleased to have a memento of Queen Katherine as if she were her own mother instead of Mary’s. ‘The likeness is excellent,’ she observed complacently, and Elizabeth murmured politely that she wished she could have known the original. Her face had frozen into wary immobility; but it thawed into pleasure when Mary fastened an enormous brooch on her dress; on it, carved in amethyst, was the story of Pyramis and Thisbe, the lovers, in translucent purple, peering at each other through a wall of diamond. And the next moment she flung a sable wrap round her shoulders.
‘There,’ she said; ‘look at yourself in the mirror, it is becoming to your fair colouring, isn’t it?’
‘One moment she scratches, then she strokes – I can never make her out,’ thought Elizabeth as she stammered out her thinks, abashed by the generosity of this odd woman whom she had begun to think wholly her enemy.
‘You gave me yellow satin once for a skirt when I was a child,’ she said. ‘Do you remember, Madam? And a gold pomander with a watch in it to tell the time. I treasure it faithfully.’
‘Treasure time too!’ said the Queen. ‘It may be on your side.’ She gave an acid little laugh.
It was safest not to answer her.
Instead, Elizabeth looked in the mirror. She saw her bright defiant head framed in the soft depths of the furs, and the gleaming purple of the carved jewel on her breast made her eyes look a clear green in contrast. She saw a young woman fashionably dressed, who could be dashing, gay, recklessly attractive – and who must at present be none of these things. The charming picture before her was her true self – and must be hidden. She would not wear Mary’s gifts again – and not only because they were Mary’s.
The frivolous flamboyant creature that had broken loose at her masquerade must go back into the stable. That self could wait; her turn would come. But now once again the demure scholar, the near nun, must be trotted out – God, how sick she was of her after all these years of restraint, of living down the scandal of her love-affair at fifteen! She must still live it down, and more, she must represent a positive ideal – the opposite in all men’s minds to the gorgeously dressed females at Court, and above all to the Queen herself, who ‘takes more pleasure in clothes than almost any woman alive.’ In appearance as well as behaviour she must show herself the white hope of the austere spirit of the Reformation.
So might any girl just twenty look in the glass and wonder what style of dress would suit her character, and in what character she would face the wor
ld. But Elizabeth’s reflections sprang from no such untried speculations. They radiated from the centre of her being, which remained fixed and constant as the lodestar – her belief in herself as the future Queen of England.
And then she saw Mary looking over her shoulder.
Though she knew her sister was just behind her, the glimpse she caught of her in the mirror turned her cold. Mary’s watchful gaze at Elizabeth’s reflection seemed to pierce deeper than when she stated at her face to face. Was the old belief then true, that the reflection is the soul, stepped naked and defenceless from the body? Did the Queen, looking at her mirrored face, now behold her true thoughts?
She shivered and muffled the sable wrap close round her face as if to hide it. But only the mouth with its secret closes-hut smile was covered. The eyes of a wild animal facing its enemy peeped out through all her suave submission.
Then Mary spoke. ‘I have had no answer from you to the message I sent asking how you liked the Prince of Piedmont’s offer of marriage to you.’
Elizabeth took fright and it flared into rage; her hands caught at the fur, tearing it off her. This kindness was a bribe, a trap. An insignificant foreign marriage was, then, the next attempt to oust her from her rights. An angry laugh flew out of her mouth, the words followed before she could stop them.
‘Madam, I liked both the message and the messenger so well that I hope never to hear of either of them again.’
Then she knew what she had said and stood ice-cold, waiting for the answering burst of rage from Mary. She could roar too, as loudly as their father; Elizabeth had once heard her two rooms off. And the roar would be an order to the guards to come and arrest her and lead her away to prison. She looked at the fur lying at her feet, another trapped – no, dead animal, and wondered that she had thought it beautiful. ‘Oh God, to be free, and free of fear!’ she sighed to herself in the silence.
At last she heard Mary’s voice, gruff, undoubtedly grim, but not a roar, not an order for imprisonment.
‘So you openly admit it – your fixed purpose to stay on here, on the chance of the throne?’
With a physical effort Elizabeth unclenched her hands and looked at her sister with a calm untroubled gaze.
‘No, Madam,’ she said quietly, ‘but I admit that I am mere English, and wish never to leave my country.’
‘Mere English! And what of your French friends? Do you think I know nothing of what goes on? More than one young friend of yours overheard de Noailles’ repartee to you at my Coronation when you complained of the fit of your coronet – “Have patience, you will soon get a better!”’
‘“Have patience” indeed!’ cried Elizabeth, with as free and natural irritation as if she were speaking to Cat Ashley. ‘May Heaven send it me and save me from my friends! Am I responsible for a few giggling young fools?’
‘You have entertained a great many of them in your chamber lately, where their giggling has been plainly audible. No, do not apologise—’ (though Elizabeth had shown no sign of doing so) – ‘I prefer laughter to whispers, and at least – at last – you were frank with me just now in your reply to Piedmont’s proposal. If you would only be so always! What is the truth about you and the French ambassador? Does de Noailles visit your chambers, not as one of a crowd of silly young things, but in secret, at night, disguised as a French refugee priest?’
Elizabeth swung round, her irritation more frank than ever in her relief at having something tangible that she could honestly deny. ‘Of all the gibberish!’ she began, then checked sharply. ‘Madam, I beg your pardon, I was startled out of my senses. Who on earth could have accused me of such a thing? It can be no one who knows anything of me. Would I do anything so preposterous – so utterly insane? Were I the most criminal plotter in your kingdom – which, God hear me, I am not – I could not do anything so farcically inept.’
The words that were rushing into her head had to be bitten back: that Mary’s own passion for mysterious midnight interviews had led her to suspect it in others; that Mary could only see politics in terms of persons, and since she had taken the ambassador from Spain as a combination of confidant, dearest friend and father confessor, so she thought Elizabeth must be playing the same silly game with the ambassador from France.
She forced herself to keep calm, to wait before she spoke again, and then only to beg the name of her accuser.
Mary would not tell her, she would only murmur a trifle shamefacedly that it was obvious that Elizabeth and Monsieur de Noallies were close friends, should she say allies?
Elizabeth summoned all the appearance of candour she could muster, staring her sister full in the face and speaking so forcibly that she sounded as though she were barking. She was honest enough now in all conscience, but could she make this stupid woman believe it?
‘That, Madam, is what he has desired, naturally, from the moment that he has suspected your future affiance with Spain. England is the deciding factor in the balance of power between France and Spain. Whichever of those two countries is allied to England will rule the world, and the other will sink to a secondary power. The moment you wed Spain you make France your enemy – and mine, for she will try to stir up strife against you in my name. But she is no more my friend than yours. She is working only for herself, to restore the balance of power, which you have tipped over on to the side of Spain by throwing England into the scales with her, instead of keeping the balance even,’ – ‘as I shall do if I ever get the chance,’ she added to herself, but dared not look in the glass even as she thought it, lest her bared eyes should tell her thought to Mary.
She had been unbelievably bold, but it worked. As she had seen, it was her only chance to impress Mary; and, offended, sad and angry as Mary was at the criticism of her purpose, which she remained determined not to alter, she yet felt rather less distrust of Elizabeth, and even a grudging respect. But she could not be gracious to her. ‘You are very wise about politics,’ she said with a snort that relegated the upstart chit back to the schoolroom.
‘I have had some reason to be,’ said Elizabeth patiently. ‘My enemies – no, ours – are doing their best to make you destroy me on one pretext or another. As soon as I am gone they will invent other lies against me.’ She stood looking down on the stiff, meagre little figure, the ageing unhealthy face; then forced herself to kneel to her. ‘Promise me one thing, Madam when I am gone.’ She put out her delicate hand with reluctance (but it looked like timidity) and touched the stumpy pale brown fingers with their heavy rings. ‘Promise me you will never listen to any ill tales against me without giving me the chance to answer them, myself, to you in person.’
Mary looked down in her turn on the graceful arrogant young figure now so consciously humble, and tried not to feel satisfaction. ‘Once I had to walk behind you and bear your train’ she said to herself, staring in a way that Elizabeth found terrifying, for she could not know that Mary was seeing her as the squalling infant with fluffy red hair who had been declared heir to the throne instead of her seventeen-year-old sister.
‘Why do you look so at me, Madam? Will you not promise this? Is it too much to ask – that you will not condemn me, unheard?’
‘Oh, you will be heard,’ said Mary, trying to speak lightly while still remembering the enraged squeals of that infamously royal infant. ‘You were always very good at that!’
What did she mean? Never mind. The interview was over and on her feet again, all but staggering with relief. And she had won her point; Mary would not condemn her unheard.
It was a pity she rather spoilt her success by then taking her farewell with the gentle and forgiving air of an injured innocent obliged to leave the Court in disgrace after the insults she had endured; she was aware that this irritated Mary profoundly, but she could not help overplaying her part out of sheer bravado and thankfulness that she would soon not need to go on playing.
She rode out on a brilliant frosty day with five hundred gentlemen in white and green like heralds of the spring. Their horses whi
nnied in the keen air. She felt like whinnying herself. She had triumphed. She was still in danger – but who wasn’t these days, unless one was a milkmaid or a ploughboy? To be out of danger was to be insignificant, to be humble, to be dull (God forbid!), to be dead. But she would rather be dead dull.
‘I am alive, Cat! I am free! I am young!’ she cried in ecstasy.
‘Well, don’t make too sure of any of them,’ was the governess’s admonition.
‘Not even the last? No one can take away my youth.’
‘Time can.’
‘Oh, but Time is on my side. Even the Queen says so. And I will treat him as carefully as an old uncle from whom I have expectations – as indeed I have! He’ll never let me grow old – when I am, I won’t be, or at least no one will think so. Look at me and tell me honestly, can you believe I’ll ever be old?’
‘No,’ said Cat honestly, then turned away her head. It might well be that her young mistress would never be given the chance to grow old! Did she herself understand that? Yes, she did, but she seemed to glory in it, so headstrong was she, so wild and ungovernable. Cat told her that she seemed positively to revel in tempting Providence.
‘What, that frail lady! She can never resist temptation. How unlike my poor elder sister, who has resisted temptation so long that now she has no chance to do so!’
‘Don’t be too sure. She might be tempted to cut off your head.’
‘She might. And she has been. But she’s resisted that too, with my help. I’ve won the first joust with Mary. And I’ve impressed her. I might even have impressed her rather more,’ she added pensively. ‘One can’t do a good thing too thoroughly.’
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