by Betty Younis
She saw Bess napping in the wooden chair Quinn had dragged outside for her on such beautiful summer days as this one. Her feet rested on a tuffet from the library, and Elizabeth walked her horse slowly up the drive to minimize the sound of crunching gravel beneath its hooves. She sighed at the picture of bucolic contentment the scene presented. Even knowing that such could never have been her lot and fortune, it yet caused a stirring for family and children within her. But it would not happen, despite her ministers and ambassadors continuing to harp upon the need for a successor. She was aging and with that age came a bitter maturity that now informed her decisions.
Her early intuitions had proven correct. Her life was best lived and protected with no king in her kingdom. One mistress and no master. To allow marriage to come between her and her people was tantamount to putting her own life at grave risk as well. She would become the pawn rather than the pawn’s mistress, the queen jettisoned to ensure a more favorable outcome for someone else. Let them all rage and rant about continental politics and the advantage of this or that prince. She listened and pretended interest, nothing more, for even if one candidate should somehow managed to rise above her concerns for self and kingdom, none could temper her concerns about childbirth at her age. No, better to leave it all and enjoy what she had than to risk some unknown fate at the hands of someone who would undoubtedly place their safety and ambitions above her own.
In years past, she had questioned herself as to the validity of her fears. Were they justified or just goblins left under the bed from her terrifying childhood? But now those self-doubts and questions were laid to rest. Whatever their origins, the threats remained, but rather than fight demons she could never exorcise she chose to embrace them, realizing they would be with her regardless, even unto the grave.
She knew Quinn must have seen her by now for she was halfway up Coudenoure’s long drive, yet he remained distant most deliberately. Again, Elizabeth sighed. He had never forgiven her for taking profit from John Hawkins’ slave trade with the plantations of the new world. A man who could not bear to see a caterpillar harmed was not one to condone human misery in one of its most pure and debauched forms. She had tried to explain it to him, but he remained firm in his convictions that nothing justified such actions – all arguments in support of the policy were nothing more than irrational rationalizations in the face of moral absolutes. She knew him to be right, but she also knew the mounting pressures of continental politics and religious fervor – her establishment of the Anglican Church two years earlier would surely lead to her own excommunication with Rome, and such papal action would be accompanied by a rising fervor to see someone else on the English throne. Her enemies need look no further than her northern border to find that someone. Mary Queen of the Scots would happily take her place and see Catholicism restored. Elizabeth admired Quinn and even loved his innocence, but her profits from the slave trade must continue, for she needed to build a military which would give pause to all who might choose to confront England. It was not justifiable and she knew it but such knowledge did not stop her. Pray God he might forgive her.
She saw Bess stir and sit up and waved at her merrily. A shout went up and another chair was promptly brought from indoors.
“Bess, I declare, each time I leave and come back, you are yet again with child. Is there a connection?”
Bess laughed and began struggling to her feet to curtsey.
“Oh, what a sight,” Elizabeth giggled. “I think, niece, we may forego the customary ritual for if you stand I fear the child may fall out. You see, you are quite, well, quite…”
Bess laughed.
“Fat? Huge? Yes, and then some! But ’tis my last time like this so I shall enjoy it and eat all the plum sauce I like.”
“Ah, so we are still on plum sauce, are we. And the radishes?”
“No, mercifully I no longer desire them. Quinn would not kiss me when I ate them, you know.”
“Clearly, Quinn has no problem kissing you. And yes! Here he is now! Sir Quinn, how are you today?”
Quinn shifted Michael from his shoulders and bowed deeply before disappearing indoors. Elizabeth gave Bess a frustrated look.
“Still he forgives me not?”
“Majesty, he knows, as we all do, the slave trade to be wrong, and that profit from such ventures will not advance England one whit.”
Elizabeth sighed. When John Hawkins had first come to her with his scheme, she had known it to be wrong and repulsive. But the promised monies pouring into her eternally empty coffers were too much to resist. She knew it was wrong. She knew it to be morally reprehensible, but Quinn with his high-handed morality had at length got the better of her, and their many discussions had devolved into equally many quarrels. Were it not for him being Bess’ husband and Anne’s father, she would have put an end to the arguments. But she could not enjoy the relaxed and familial atmosphere at Coudenoure if she did so, and so she put up with it.
Bess watched her and then patted her hand.
“Aunt, Quinn does not understand the world you live in and navigate on a daily basis. He has no claim to know whereof you make your decisions.”
“Tut,” came the reply, “I would like to see him manage a kingdom as bereft of money as the one I inherited. Indeed I would!”
Elizabeth settled back in her chair and a table with tea, fruit and scones appeared.
A small voice behind her caused Elizabeth to grin and forget Quinn.
“Michael, curdy to de keen.”
Michael and Anne appeared and Anne pointed a stern finger first at her brother then at Elizabeth.
“Dat is de keen. Now, curdy.”
Michael attempted a curtsey and promptly fell over. Both children exploded in laughter and Michael, dark-haired, gray-eyed and ever mindful and delighted with an audience, repeated his performance. Anne spied the cakes and promptly climbed into Elizabeth’s lap, looking with longing at the one Elizabeth held in her hand.
“Would you like a bite?” the queen asked.
Anne’s eyes never left the cake. She watched in mesmerized awe as Elizabeth moved her hand closer. Carefully she leaned in and closed her eyes as she bit into the pastry.
“Mmmmmmmm.” Both women roared with laughter. Bess passed a scone to Michael and he scuttled away.
“Now, tell me Anne, what have you been about?”
Anne considered the question thoughtfully.
“Well, keen, I must tell you dat de peacocks love der own feaders too dearly.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because when I wanted some for de hat I am making Moder, dey screech when I try and get dem.”
“What happened?” Elizabeth inquired with a smile.
“De bit Michael.”
“They bit Michael?”
Anne nodded matter-of-factly as she took another bite of the heavenly cake.
“Cause he were holding dem still for me.”
“Indeed.” Elizabeth chuckled, “’Tis a good and intelligent division of labor it seems to me.”
“I tink so.”
“And how are your lessons coming? Are you working hard?”
Anne shook her head no.
“And why not?”
Anne grinned a toothy and gapped smile.
“Because der are too many butterflies I need to…to…dentify.”
Bess passed her a scone and she, too, ran happily around the corner of the manor house.
“So you have not yet engaged a tutor, I assume?”
Bess nodded.
“I need to but I keep thinking of plums in all their many forms instead: sauces, fruits, tarts, sugared…”
“Yes, I believe I see your point. Very well, I shall engage a tutor for young Michael and Anne. They shall need one for language, and I shall get them one especial for science and nature – perhaps Quinn will then like me once more.”
“’Tis not like or dislike, Majesty.”
Elizabeth waved her hand to signal she was done with the c
onversation.
“They shall be here anon and Quinn and Sir John Dee shall be consulted in their hire. Now, what about your sculpting?”
The conversation turned to art, to the children’s this-and-that, to court, to life. They were old friends now, and Elizabeth watched the colors in the meadows change as the sun rolled across the bright sky, happy in the present and the here and now. Bess, too, was content with the lazy pace of the afternoon. Finally, however, Elizabeth rose and shook the crumbs from her dress.
“I will come more often, for today has been useful for me, Bess.”
“’Tis good for me as well, Majesty. Since Prudence died, I have no women kin here about.”
“She was not kin, but I understand the sentiment,” Elizabeth mused. “We will see what we can do.”
With that mysterious reference, she called for her horse and rode slowly down the drive now bathed in a dusky light. Bess called for servants to bring the furniture back inside and went in search of Quinn.
*****
“Are you coming with Papa or staying out with the ladies?” Quinn inquired of his son, looking down and smiling at the grubby little urchin. Michael seemed poised to enter the house with his father when the servants passed by with the table, tea and cakes. He never gave Quinn a second glance as he toddled back towards his mother and Elizabeth. Quinn smiled and closed the door.
Bess and he had settled comfortably at Coudenoure after their wedding. There had been flutter about what to do with Tyche: Quinn had insisted that while he would live wherever Bess desired, he would not turn the people who served him out to fend for themselves with no clear means for living. But Coudenoure was a small estate with no need for a doubling of its staff. Elizabeth had solved the issue for them when she suggested Tyche go to the crown, and she could reward a courtier with it in due time. In the interim, Quinn’s servants had a home and could use the interlude to find other stations. It was a sensible solution, one agreed upon by all.
The only other issue with the happy couple taking up residence together was a space for Quinn to continue what had now become his passion: studying the natural world. He still spoke the language of architecture as his first tongue, but marrying Bess, having children and meeting John Dee had given him a second language with which to speak – that of the almost mystical world where God’s plan was expressed through the rhythms, shapes and sounds of nature. His childhood delight in insects and their goings-on had developed into a mature study of their forms and habits. Tiny boxes with bugs, bugs with pins holding them to wooden planks, flowers carefully pulled apart and glued to whatever lay handy – all of these gave way to systematic and rigorous attempts to classify and understand. But where to house such activity? Bess and Quinn had stumbled upon the solution together.
The great hallway of Coudenoure stretched almost the distance of the house from front to back. Indeed, most assumed that the massive iron and oak door at its far end led to the outside world behind the house. It did not. Like so many other bits and pieces of Coudenoure, it was a relic from the medieval monastery which had once been the estate. Behind the door lay a large room once used by the monks as a public larder. Their ministrations to the poor had included herbal medicines, food and alms, and they had chosen to keep these wares in a central place. The hinges of the great door had rusted through and over time the space beyond it lay forgotten. Quinn had asked about it as they explored Coudenoure and at once they had determined to see what was shielded by its massive timbers. After much oil, muscle and the occasional whack of a hammer or two, the ancient door had yielded.
The interior was dark and gloomy, but large and with a high arched ceiling of the type so common at Coudenoure. Near the top of the outer wall a row of small, leaded windows afforded what little natural light was given to the room. Shelves and tables were filled with neatly labeled apothecary jars and in the corner, two huge barrels of flour, or perhaps oats, stood ready for handout to the poor. Record books, bound neatly, lay side by side with individual pages of the monk’s ledgers which still covered one table – an ancient quill with a tiny ink well stood at the ready nearby. Quinn had immediately fallen in love with the space. Bess had not, and it took her new husband’s architectural eye to see it as it might be. During their first year of marriage, Bess had been consumed with pregnancy and Quinn with his newly discovered study. The huge, limestone blocks of the back wall had been replaced with floor to ceiling windows. Shelves were built along the interior wall, and the tables were kept for uses such as might develop. The great fireplace and flue were cleaned and readied for use, and by the time their eldest child, Anne, was born, it had become for Quinn what Bess’ studio was for her. Michael was born eleven months later.
Through John Dee and Elizabeth, Quinn became part of a rising group of English explorers and naturalists. It was a world which suited him and he never ceased to marvel at the sheer luck of his falling into a life which so matched his passions. Happy absentmindedness was his normal mode and as the children grew and his collections expanded, so too did the chaos of his life. He was thrilled as it all spiraled gently out of control.
Bess seldom interfered with her husband’s daily routine, insisting only that his stockings match, his meals be eaten with the family, and that he and Dee cease all gunpowder experiments, at least in the house. The last one had rocked Coudenoure. When Bess, the queen, Dudley, the children and the servants had entered Quinn’s study, they found him beating the right side of his head to put out the small fire which burned there. Dee’s beard was half the length it had been moments earlier, and the room was filled with floating bits of papers, flowers, bugs and smoke.
“Quinn!” Bess had screamed. “My love, are you alright?”
Quinn and Dee had both blinked and stared at her without answering. Quinn continued to pat the side of his head absently.
“Quinn!” she screamed again.
“Did you say again, or Quinn?” shouted Dee over the ringing in his ears. “Because madam, ’tis not in anyone’s best interest to do so. At least not until we have reviewed our methodology.”
Anne had keenly observed her father’s new manner of hair and had promptly taken Michael aside and cut his to match. They found her before she lit the candle.
During Bess’ third pregnancy, Quinn had planned and begun executing the building of a small glass house attached to his study – friends were bringing strange seeds and plants from worlds Quinn knew he would never see himself, but might yet experience through the treasures they provided him. When Martin Frobisher had arrived with an eight foot specimen of a flowering tree which bore the precious lemon fruit, Bess had screamed with excitement – the tree brought back memories of Rome. It was the last such tree from Frobisher, however, for he was determined to find a northern route to the new world and had Elizabeth’s backing to do so.
The only thorn which existed in Quinn’s world was his ongoing displeasure with Elizabeth’s taking profit from the slaving expeditions of John Hawkins. He could not reconcile such activity with that of a civilized nation. Time and again, Bess had tried to discuss it with him only to be rebuffed by his anger. But by late summer of ’67, when Bess began laboring with their third child, she extracted a promise from him.
“You will stop the quarrel with our queen and my aunt,” she had hissed between contractions, “…for I am tired unto death of the two of you. Do I think she should? No. Is it my choice? No. And just for you…” Bess sucked in her breath as another contraction hit, “…just for you she gives a portion of her profit to the poor.”
“I am sure that makes all the difference in the world to the souls who are being traded like sacks of flour, dear.”
He held her hand and she squeezed tightly before the midwife began hustling him from the room.
“Promise me.”
“I promise, my love, I promise.”
And that was that, for ultimately he could deny her nothing.
Catherine Jane was born the following morning.
Another perfect day. Another perfect year.
Chapter Seventeen
1573
“Quickly, Anne, before Nanny misses us.”
“Nanny? Do not be silly, Michael. ’Twill not be Nanny who calls for us first and alerts mother.”
On the banks of the Thames, Catherine threw rose petals from a basket all the while singing a sad, dirge-like melody which she made up as she went along. She was dressed in her finest blue silk dress, the one she had insisted must have purple tassels added to its waist for emphasis. The sleeves of the gown were cut with orange velvet panels, again of a fabric and color of her own choosing. On her head was the hand-me-down flat cap with peacock feathers given her by Elizabeth. Slightly too large and unwilling to sit on her blond curls, it was tightly secured by pins put in place by Anne. The overall effect was one of sumptuous elegance. In the children’s eyes at least.
“Ah, he went to sea and was lost and dead,” intoned the doleful lyrics…“Very dead indeed was he because he would not take his sister with him. And so to punish him God…”
“Catherine!”
She ignored Anne and continued to sing of her brother’s impending fate since he would not allow her on board his ship.
Anne too wore her finest, a gown of dusky pink with tiny roses embroidered on its full skirt. Like Catherine’s, the hem was blackened with mud and debris. Her hat had been lost in the struggle to mount the sail on Michael’s rowboat. For the past two weeks, the two of them had carefully retrofitted the little craft with a rigging mast and rudder with cord controls. It had been arduous work, but the day had finally arrived when Michael would put to sea upon the Thames. Catherine was to be his lady fair waving her silken banner tearfully as her love pulled away. She was not inclined, however, to play the role of one who stays dutifully behind.
