by David Elias
“Mine.”
“I should sign the title over to you.”
“Why would you want to do a thing like that?” I asked.
“Must you still ask such a question?”
“What in return?”
“There’s another.” He raised an eyebrow.
“You know by now my company is best taken in small doses.”
“And yet I would seek after that good medicine and have need of it often.”
“But . . . I am too old for such romantic notions.”
“Your looks say otherwise.”
“I grow into wrinkled age.”
“You are as beautiful a woman to me as ever you were.”
“You see what you want to see.” I got up and strode to a far window. “This place you want to build. It will take time. Where will I live in the meantime?”
“We can take up residence at Drury Lane, where I have some apartments you could make use of. And Leicester House, though not so well appointed, is comfortable enough should you wish to make use of it. I grant they are not royal accommodations, but it would only be until Ashdown is finished.”
“And what will people say when they learn that the Winter Queen has come back to England and taken up residence under the Earl of Craven’s roof?”
“They can say what they like.”
“You have a reputation.”
“It will all be different once we get out to Ashdown.”
“But even so, if someone should ask about our . . . arrangement, how would you characterize it, exactly?”
“No more than that we have always been kind to each other.”
“Your memory betrays you, for I have not always been so to you.”
“I cannot complain.”
“I treat you poorly, or ignore you, or shunt you aside when it suits me, yet you insist on forgiving me, and look where it has led us.”
“You think less of me for it, I know. But you have a need of care, and I have a need to provide it. What is so wrong about that?”
“It is entirely one-sided and makes both parties wretched.”
“Even wretchedness has had its uses.”
“But who should suffer the greater punishment: you at the hands of my stubborn discontent, or I under the tyranny of your obstinate forgiveness? Must we now insist on enduring yet longer?”
“I am satisfied.”
“I warned you from the very first that you should not seek to cherish me.”
“How often have you chided me for it.” His tone spoke more of warmth than recrimination.
“And yet you persist.” I hardly knew where my anger welled up from, and yet it would not be denied. “Do you not see how destructive it is? It runs first to pity, then to disdain.”
“Not for my part.” He came to kneel next to me where I sat stiffly in my chair. “Elizabeth, will you let me build this house for you in Ashdown? It will be the greatest happiness of my life.”
“And how if I accept your proposal with no promise to be less ungracious than I have always been?”
“Then you shall soon find yourself in the sweet country air.”
“There are bound to be those who will say I took advantage.” I rose and made my way to the window.
“Let them think what they like.” He waited for me to turn to him. “We know the truth.”
“Indeed.” I peered once more into the darkness beyond the window. “But will that be enough?”
Chapter Seventeen
We made the journey to England on a pleasant spring day in May, and though the channel crossing was uneventful I was not prepared for the storm of emotion that arose within me when first I set eyes upon my fair and long-lost homeland. Hearing that the ship was nearing land, and the weather being so agreeable, I took myself out on deck to enjoy the landing. I came to stand at the railing, and there before me lay the familiar shores of England, the chalk cliffs of Margate with its inns and cottages lining the pier, the tall ships and fishing boats anchored in the harbour. This was the very place Frederick and I had departed from fifty years ago! My heart made a great leap as a wave of bittersweet joy swept over me and tears welled up to blur my vision. Not for a moment, in all the years of living in Heidelberg and Prague and The Hague, had I thought myself truly in a place of my own, but now it seemed to me I had come home. For a moment I was young again, with all my hopes and dreams yet before me.
Lord Craven arranged for us to stay at his newly restored estate in Drury Lane, and as I was all but forgotten in England we managed, at least for a time, to settle quietly into the bosom of London. I was granted the use of one wing and lived much as I had before, save without the need to entertain even a small court. The transport of my bed had thankfully been seen to, but it was not until its assembly had been properly accomplished and I had spent a few nights in restful sleep upon it that I began to feel a little more comfortable.
For a time the days passed in modest and unassuming quietude, but news of my return eventually made its way to the royal court, and thereafter rumblings began in Parliament of an unwelcome drain on the exchequer should the King see fit to provide his aunt with a royal living allowance. As it is, Charles has failed to extend even the most perfunctory hospitality upon my return. He has little need of my good graces and no doubt deems the crown upon his head yet precariously perched there, inasmuch as the newly restored monarchy is still quite fragile. Not a farthing will he lift from the exchequer for my sake, and so eager is he to appease his benefactors that only last week he had Lord Cromwell’s corpse dug up from the Abbey, beheaded, and hung up in chains for public display. For Lord Craven’s part, he has seen to my needs well enough, but then quite unexpectedly my residence at Drury Lane became a matter of concern. It came to light that our situation, considering the fact that we were not married, had fallen into some disfavour. Accordingly the matter became a delicate one, if only because the remainder of Lord Craven’s properties have yet to be restored to him. And so, rather than jeopardize their transfer, we agreed it would be better that I no longer remain under his roof.
So it is that I find myself here at Leicester House. The living quarters are hardly sumptuous, but I am comfortable enough, attended to by these few servants assigned to see to my needs. My bed has been seen to. I have use of a private bedchamber, albeit with naught but a water closet, as well as an antechamber, and this small study where my meals are brought in to me, though I hardly eat of them. It is the dead of winter and a stubborn melancholy has besieged me that began shortly after my arrival here. I thought at first I should manage to defeat it as I always have, but try as I may I cannot seem to shake it, so that waking and sleeping a troubling exhaustion is my constant companion. I can hardly think what afflicts me, but I grow weaker by the day. Lord Craven insists that I be tended to by a physician, but I refuse to spend my last days being poked and prodded by some practitioner who struts about in cap and robe, speaking of little else but the four humours and offering remedies dictated by the feeble teachings of antiquity. I shall not insult my failing body with purgatives and bloodletting.
But how if upon my return it was my dear brother Henry seated upon the throne of England and not this ungrateful nephew of mine? What a homecoming celebration there should have been! It would have been a different England I returned to, not this hobbled beggar of a country that is only now recovering from the ravages of civil war. Henry should be basking in the fullness of a long and happy reign, no doubt, and it should never have come about that Parliament abolished the monarchy, or bequeathed the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth upon a man like Oliver Cromwell. My brother would be Henry IX, and it would be his progeny that inherited the crown, perhaps even a daughter, for I don’t wonder that during his reign he should have seen fit to amend the laws of ascension.
I went to see the place where he is laid to rest in the Abbey yesterday, a venture t
hat cost me the last of my strength, I fear, and found him resting in the Lady Chapel, where his remains are encased under a grey and utterly unremarkable slab wedged between my grandmother’s monument and that of the Countess of Richmond. The shallow inscription chiselled upon the vault is equally uninspired, hardly a fitting testament to the memory of a future king. Entombed there with him are various others, including some nephews and nieces born to my brother Charles and his wife, Henrietta. Two of these were no more than infants when they died, and as I knelt there upon the cold stone I thought how the wings of those tiny angels must surely have borne my sweet brother up from such a pitiable grave to glorious Heaven, where he belongs. Imagine my surprise when I read that my dear cousin Arabella Stuart had also been laid to rest in the very same vault! I shall write to my nephew to ask if I might be entombed with them as well. I think he may allow it, as it will entail little more in the way of expense than to pull back the stone and inter my remains with the others.
Lord Craven has been trying to see me these last days but I will not allow it, nor have I been receiving any visitors. He keeps sending people to the house with letters for me but I hardly bother to read them. He insists on telling me about his plans for the country house at Ashdown, and is adamant that I shall be allowed to come and live there when it is finished.
February 10, 1662
Craven House, Drury Lane
Dearest Elizabeth,
Why do you see fit to punish me so mercilessly? Though your servants assure me you are not suffering unduly and that your needs are being seen to, I cannot rest. Another man might find a way to be content, but I cannot! Will you at least see fit to take up pen and paper and write some few lines of reply as a courtesy? I don’t expect forgiveness. Admonish me for my cowardice, upbraid me as harshly as you would, but to punish me further with your silence is beyond endurance.
Can I convey some news that should be of interest to you? Since your departure from Leicester House, my lands in Oxfordshire have been officially restored to me by your nephew, the King, just as he promised. Do you know what he said to me? “The matter is a delicate one” (I am quoting from memory) “as the chastened royal phoenix cannot be seen to ruffle a single feather of those peacocks that strut yet about the corridors of power.”
This news must surely please you, for it means that work can begin at once on the country home I promised to build for you. The site where it shall stand lies near Aysshen Wood, beyond the pale where a valley slopes gently away to overlook the rolling countryside of woodland and pasture. The view from the upper floors shall include the grounds and gardens just as we spoke of, and beyond them Berkshire Downs where lie the sarsen stones that built the pagan temples. There the plentiful deer run free from the hunter’s bow, and you shall see fit to tame as many of them as you wish! And just as you requested, it shall be christened Ashdown House.
But if only I could tell you all of this in person! I doubt not your ability to stand up to adversity, as you have ever been my better in that regard, but I fear your stubbornness fails to serve your best interest of late. For both our sakes I beg you to let me send a doctor. In the meantime I shall see to Ashdown House, and when it is ready everything will be different. We can live as we choose there, free from the probing eyes of king and court. I give you my solemn promise that by summer, or early fall at the latest, we shall be comfortably ensconced in the bounteous nature of Oxfordshire.
What do you say? Will you write to me? Please?
In hopes that I may be allowed to remain your humble servant and greatest admirer,
William
I grant Lord Craven has ever been attentive to my needs and I can hardly calculate what I owe him. He would see to letting me live out my days in the peace and privacy of the countryside, as I have always longed to, but soon he shall have leave to forgo such noble sentiments. I did ask him, as I was leaving Drury Lane, why he had been so kind to me over the years and he answered, “Madam, I have always enjoyed the company of a beautiful woman.” I saw that he was in earnest, for though my looks have all but vanished, in his eyes beauty alights upon me still. And so I forgive him for sending me away. He has his reputation to uphold.
I suppose it only fitting that I should spend my last hour in this dimly lit room with none but myself for company. I’ve grown resigned to my solitude and do not wish a companion. If there were another here, one of us should almost certainly have something to forgive the other for, and that ritual has grown tiresome. Or else they should be eager to offer me counsel, which would only engender more unease. Better to be free of such considerations. In any case, whom should I seek to pardon at this late hour: my nephew the King for ignoring me, my children for their absence, Lord Craven for sending me away? As to those from whom I might wish to seek absolution, the best would surely answer that there is nothing to forgive.
I find this quietude an excellent tonic. Words can soothe but silence is a better balm. If only I had more time to think, to remember. What is it I should seek to hold in my memory? Days of childhood innocence? I can hardly recall such. Besides, who can claim to be in possession of a memory so pure that time and conscience have not altered it to some degree? What has my life been but that same practice common to us all: the calculation and conjuring up of endless schemes to bring about some coveted notion of victory? In truth ours is a base existence and a baser end. We are creatures at the core, and primal needs define our fundamental nature. We are no different than the beasts of the earth in this: that we ingest on a daily basis its fruits and turn them by means of the body’s digestion into a foul and stinking putrefaction, which must then be expelled from the body in an act most vulgar. And just before we free ourselves forever from this enslavement, our last act shall be the release of one foul and final breath into the world.
I had hoped to bring a modicum of wisdom to these late hours if only to lend them some quiet dignity, but perhaps I deceive myself. Why should I seek to cobble all of this together now, so near the end of my life? I doubt it shall serve to bring about a more peaceful death. Dying itself has become tiresome. Even in death we cannot entirely escape the banality of life. Had I been allowed to live my life entirely as I pleased, as most assuredly I was not, neither shall I have that luxury in death. None of us owns the life we lived after we are gone. In death it is given over to others who remember it as they will. It may be changed, altered, even transformed. Who can say where the greater truth lies? Shall I in the end cast myself falsely? Having fallen prey to all the ambitions and calculations of a niggling life, shall I be forgiven for making of myself something of a fiction? It was only that I sought to fashion my life into art, and by such means render it purified.
Last night when I was all alone in my bed a thumping sound came to my ears, as of someone seeking admittance at a distant door, or perhaps the rumble of far-off thunder. My inhalations grew shallow until of a sudden I took in a great gulp of air, and it was then I realized what I had been hearing. It was the sound of my own heart beating! There was a strange urgency to it I couldn’t recall ever being aware of before. And soon after there came indeed a knocking at the door, but it was only one of Lord Craven’s messengers with yet another note for me. He has always been persistent; I grant him that. It has proved to be one of his most enduring qualities. It is hardly a romantic notion, yet how often by sheer staying power does a man succeed in winning the woman he loves! By such means he breaks down her will and little by little erodes her resistance. So it was with Lord Craven, although his relentless advances were more like entreaties, and my eventual surrender more like an armistice.
I can’t think that anything good can be accomplished by letting him visit me. Shall I be suffered to hear him beg forgiveness for his actions? The time for that is past. No doubt he would speak to me of Ashdown Manor and his plans for a country home there. Why should I sit and listen to him tell me all about a place I shall never see? And even if by some miracle my health should be restored
to me, it would only be for a little while at best. I know my time is near. I have no doubt of it. What should it benefit me to let him drag me out into the countryside that I might see the place, only to have it lost to me, as so much else has been? I shall spare myself that final torture.
Yet what if by some unforeseen good fortune my health should return to me, and I should live long enough to see the place finished? To view out of every window naught but the sights of glorious nature, take in the fresh country air with every breath. I have to admit it would be a good place to die. Ah, but I would make of my passing a romance, put the lie to that stale odour of death which stalks me, my vision darkening slowly into blackened circles, ears able to hear naught but the last beatings of a failed heart. That I might have been allowed to spend my last days in pastoral pleasantry is wishful thinking. Better not to imagine myself seated upon the front porch of such a place, looking out across an immense lawn, or ambling along a country path that wends its way through wood and meadow. It’s too late for that.
What if Lord Craven should find his way in here when the time is come, to bear witness to my last few breaths? Would he still think of me as beautiful? Perhaps death brings another way to look upon the living. Ah, but when I imagine myself with jaws hanging open, spittle dripping from pallid lips, skin turned the colour of wax, hair thinned to that of a ragged marionette, then where is beauty? Suffice it to say that death paints upon the flesh such final strokes as no portrait would seek to match.
Better Lord Craven should not have to witness these indignities my failing body subjects me to. My nose will not stop running and I hack with a cough and wheeze as one ridden with the plague, though I know it is not that. A surfeit of humours congests my organs and my swollen ankles have turned the colour of burgundy. I confess that even as I have seated myself here in this chair, I am not altogether certain I shall have the strength to rise up from it once more.
