“Such a thing is not fit to be spoken of anywhere!” she said, steadying herself against his table.
As if playing for both time and security, Stanley shot the door-bolt slowly. “It is probably only a rumour,” he mumbled evasively, coming back to her.
“Yet I see that it does not really surprise you, milord.”
“I understand that his Grace has discussed the—er—possible advantages of such a union with one or two of his councillors.”
“But you were not one of them?”
“No,” he admitted.
Elizabeth struck swiftly, taking him unaware with her daring. “Then you know that he does not trust you?” she said.
“Not trust me?” he bluffed, nodding significantly towards the pile of important-looking documents upon his table. But, in spite of the comfortable way in which he stuck both hands in his capacious belt, his laugh rang false.
“Queen Anne told me so before she died.”
“Ah!”
The exclamation that escaped him was that of a man who suddenly finds confirmation of something he has long suspected, and Elizabeth was swift to pursue her advantage. She went down on her knees beside him and joined supplicating hands around the curve of his arm. “Listen, milord. In return for the vow you made my father to protect us I will make you one,” she said. “But I warn you that I shall keep mine. I swear by his beloved soul that if you do not help me to avoid this horrible thing I will kill myself.”
He saw that in spite of her obstinacy she was near to fainting, and, much as he deplored having to prolong the conversation, he was obliged in common humanity to raise her up and put her in his own chair. “But what can I do?” he asked grudgingly, his face the redder for the reminder of his vow.
“Send for Henry of Lancaster. Arrange for him to come and marry me, as Henry of Buckingham did.”
“Buckingham was a fool,” he blustered, stung by the comparison.
“He was a courageous friend.”
“But what did you gain by it? The time was not ripe.”
Hope began to shine in Elizabeth's eyes. “You mean that if it had been you might have helped us, as your wife did?” she suggested softly.
“The new King was still too popular,” he added, too wary to answer her question.
Elizabeth stretched a pleading hand to him. “Then you think that now, when the people hold him responsible for my brothers and will be horrified at this rumour about his wanting to marry me, the time might indeed be ripe to let Henry Tudor know?” she insisted.
Thomas Stanley had regained his poise. He was again his successful, purposeful self. “There is no need to let Henry Tudor know,” he said cautiously. “But I prefer not to discuss these matters with women. Forgive me for saying so, but there is always someone who tells a bosom friend. See what happened to Buckingham!”
He had named no one, but it was not difficult for Elizabeth to guess upon whom he cast the blame. She stood up and faced him. He was not a tall man and she looked directly into his eyes. “Although I have lived subservient to her, I am a very different woman from my mother. You, who have known me all my life, should know that,” she said. “Just as you know that Margaret, your wife, saved you from trouble by her silence.”
There was a new, steadfast dignity about Elizabeth which compelled him. And, even more than his ambitions, he loved his wife to whom she paid tribute. “Everything remains as it was before—save that we bide our time. Once he has been persuaded to put his hand to something, my stepson, Henry Tudor, is not the kind to let go,” he began to say slowly, as if repeating some well-conned formula. “His uncle Jasper Tudor, who brought him up, is a tower of strength. The French King has promised ships. Bishop Morton's brains are of even more use to us now he is free overseas. Your half-brother Dorset keeps in touch. Margaret's man Lewis still comes and goes. There is no need to tell Henry Tudor anything.”
Hope and excitement sprang in Elizabeth's heart. The colour came back into her cheeks. “So this time you will fight on our side!” she exclaimed.
But Stanley knew that it took subtlety to live through three such varied reigns. He had never been one to rely upon standard-raising and dramatics. “With four thousand armed retainers and a brother who has nearly as many it would probably be sufficient not to fight at all!” he said dryly.
“Then when Henry lands and Richard summons you to his aid—”
Stanley held up a plump, arresting hand. “Not so fast, dear lady! It is not as simple as all that. Do you suppose that the Lancastrian is such a fool as to risk putting himself into a noose without some written guarantee as to how many supporters are to be counted on, and in what places they will be? And, above all, a signed promise that you will marry him when he does come, and so lend his landing popularity and strengthen the weakness of his claim? Henry is capable, but cautious—a man after my own heart. Hearing through Lewis of your brothers' fate, he has even asked for assurance that if any accident should befall you—which Heaven forbid!—he may have Cicely.”
Womanlike, Elizabeth saw the matter from a more personal angle. Such caution sounded too cold and calculating. Although she had never seen the man, she had begun to weave roseate dreams about him, thinking of him as her personal deliverer, so that now a cloud seemed to obscure her new happiness. “Then why do you not send him what he wants?” she asked almost coldly.
“Because I cannot write,” said the great Lord Stanley, who commanded an army almost as big as the King's, besides half the strongholds in Lancashire.
To a daughter of Edward Plantagenet and Elizabeth Woodville his confession came almost as a shock; yet she knew that many of the powerful barons could write only such things as were necessary to the management of their estates. “But you have a whole army of scriveners,” she said, smiling at him affectionately.
“And do you suppose that I would trust any of them?” he countered. “No matter how loyal he might be, the lives of all of us would be in that man's hands.” He took a turn towards the door as if to assure himself that there was no one there, and then sat opposite to her, leaning across the table and taking her into his full confidence at last. “I tell you, Bess, the only hope of success in this momentous scheme is that the King shall learn nothing of my personal intentions until the last moment. His mind is alert, his espionage good. As you say, he has never really trusted me. Until after Henry's landing I must remain the necessary makeweight which both men need—the unknown quantity for which even an experienced soldier like Richard can make no certain calculations.”
Elizabeth saw the deep, treacherous wisdom of his words. If she sickened at the treachery, she knew that it was only fair to remember that he had had to choose between unwillingly serving the new King or sharing Will Hastings' fate. The deep scar on his forehead bore testimony to the treatment he had already received for trying to withstand the usurper. “Let me write those letters,” she offered, after a moment's thought. “Surely you will trust me, whom it most concerns?”
His fine brown eyes opened wide. He stared at her in surprised silence. Here was a solution he had never thought of—an offer too good to be turned down. He knew her to be clever and dependable—the one member of her family to whom all the rest turned when in trouble.
He decided that he could trust her discretion. “We could not risk doing such a thing here in the Palace,” he said tentatively. “Anyone might come upon us at any time. You see, there are others besides ourselves who must be present. Men who have promised to raise troops and must subscribe their names before Henry will move.”
“Where would you normally meet for such a purpose?” asked Elizabeth.
Now that there was something definite and dangerous to do he noticed how calm and practical she was. “I do not know. In some London tavern kept by one of my own people, probably.”
“Then let me come with you to the tavern,” she suggested, with as little fuss as though she were proposing to meet him in the rose garden.
Stanley regarded her with
new admiration. Because she was young and gallant and his friend's daughter, the hazardous, long drawn-out enterprise suddenly took on a more hopeful and splendid guise and seemed more worth risking men's lives for. “But how?” he asked, almost as if it were she who was taking the lead.
“Dressed as one of your servants,” she said promptly. “I tried it once before when I wanted to get out of sanctuary.”
So she had not always been the meek, dutiful elder daughter he had supposed. “It should be possible,” he said, considering the tall, slender lines of her figure. “I could perhaps find means to smuggle in to you the livery of one of my lads.”
Elizabeth blew him a grateful kiss across the table and laughed with relief; and when she laughed she endeared herself to him by looking absurdly like her father. Or like luckless young Edward the Fifth for that matter—the family resemblance was so strong. “There is no need to do that,” she said. “Somewhere in my clothes chest I have an old suit of Ned's which I expect I can still get into. Oh, nothing gorgeous or conspicuous, I assure you! So give me but the eagle badge of your livery and I will pin it on.”
So once again she looped back her golden hair so that it fell straight to her shoulders and put on her elder brother's plain black suit; but this time she was neither alone nor frightened. In spite of what Stanley had said about women's tongues, she was obliged to take Mattie into her confidence because there must be someone to bolt the door after her and say that she was sick abed if anybody asked for her. And Humphrey Brereton, who was her devoted slave, had a horse waiting in the courtyard. And outside, where the roofs and towers of London made such a lovely silhouette against the pale evening sky, she knew that she had the strongest backing in the country—so strong a backing that the country itself must surely be overturned! After the heat of the day the breeze from the river was exhilarating, and they rode quickly without speaking through Charing village. As they passed through Lud Gate and the City houses began to close in upon them Brereton stopped at an inn, on the door of which someone had chalked an eagle's foot. He dared not help her to alight, but, calling to an ostler to take their horses, strode on before her up the stairs.
The room above was small and stifling with drawn curtains, and full of men who stood and spoke together in anxious undertones. They turned as she followed Brereton through the low doorway, and in that second she ceased to be a squire's page. Lord Stanley detached himself from the rest and went down on one knee and kissed her hand. Brereton leaned with drawn sword against the bolted door. Some of the men Elizabeth recognized as Lancastrian supporters, some of them she was more than surprised to see there. Sir Gilbert Talbot's presence showed her how uncertain were Richard's friendships. There were important personages like Hungerford, Bourchier, Sandford, Savage, Digby—all men with resolution written upon their faces, prepared to put their hand to what they had promised.
Candles and paper had been set upon the table; their plans were made and no man wished to loiter. Then and there Elizabeth sat in the midst of them in boyish doublet and hose and wrote to Henry of Lancaster all that they told her. As they named times and places the full momentousness of the plan unfolded itself before her. And she herself, by her promise to marry her Lancastrian rival, was the pivot upon which it all hinged. Never had she been more grateful to her parents for the careful education they had given her. When at last she had finished writing in her fine, clear hand about armies and supplies and landing ports she laid upon the table a sealed letter from herself—a love-letter telling Henry Tudor that she, as a woman, wanted him to come. And warm from her finger she drew a ring. “I pray you, Humphrey, give the Earl of Richmond these from me,” she said to Brereton, who was to take the risk of being their messenger.
The ride back to Westminster was always in her mind a confused blur. This time they rode with Lord Stanley and the rest of his party. After that overcrowded room the fresh air outside was like wine. It was dark, and save for an occasional lighted window only the stars above the overhanging gables lighted their way through the narrow streets. Elizabeth was half frightened, half elated by what she had done. High-sounding words which had been said to her flitted through her mind. “The red and white roses will be united at last.” “The country will know peace and prosperity.” And closer and more personal her mother's tragic voice saying “Now my sons will be avenged!” And closer still Margaret of Richmond's lovely voice saying gently about her son, “He is studious and competent and gentle.” Would he be gentle to her, his wife? Riding home under the stars, though she rode like a page at Stanley's stirrup, Elizabeth felt herself to be a Queen. A sovereignty which she was prepared to share. In her warm generosity all that she had she gave to Henry Tudor, who would come like a legendary knight to deliver her. “This night,” she thought, glancing down from the immensity of the stars to her ringless finger on the reins, “I have perhaps changed the destiny of England.”
Only as the dark mass of the Palace loomed before them did her spirits begin to fall. Elation passed and cold fear gripped at her because of the inevitableness of this thing she had done. Seeing a light still burning in the private apartments, she thought for the first time of Richard. Of Richard, not as the representative of a dynasty, but as a person. A person whom she had talked and laughed with—and betrayed. Betrayed to his death perhaps. Like her self, he was a Yorkist—not a stranger Lancastrian. Suppose, nagged her veering conscience, it should ever be proved that he was innocent of her brothers' death? Suppose young Ned still lived somewhere and she had deprived him, too, of all hope of his rightful inheritance. Might she not regret this night's impulsive work during all the rest of life? In spite of the cloak which Brereton had lent her, she shivered as they rode quietly into the Palace courtyard.
Seeing Lord Stanley, the guard saluted. Men stumbled from the guardroom, hastily fastening their belts. Grooms came for the horses and a sleepy servant brought a torch. Elizabeth, stiff from riding astride, slid down from the saddle as she had seen her brothers do. She let Humphrey Brereton's cloak fall where he would be sure to see it. “Here, boy, hold my hat and gloves a moment!” called Stanley, giving her an excuse to keep near him as they went through the gatehouse archway; and later gave her an unceremonious push towards the backstairs. “Up you go and get you to bed, or you'll be more of a dunderpate than ever in the morning!” he ordered, so that all should hear.
Elizabeth climbed the stairs with thankfulness, glad that the episode was over. Up to the present, excitement had kept her unaware of how much it had taken out of her. Now she trailed up yawning in the darkness, plucking the eagle badge from her shoulder as she went. Small need to tell her to go to bed, she thought, with a reminiscent smile. All she longed for was to get there. She would ask Mattie to stay and would snuggle down beside her.
At the top of the stairs Elizabeth paused to make sure that no one was about. Mercifully everyone else in the Palace seemed to be asleep. Through a closed door she could hear someone snoring. How good God had been to her!
In order to reach her unpretentious bedroom in the wardrobe wing she had yet to traverse some of the private apartments which were full of memories of Anne. She paused again to listen when she came to the Long Gallery at the end of them; but that, too, seemed to be deserted. A lamp was always kept burning beneath the arch at either end of it. The wind had risen and somewhere a casement banged, stirring the life-size figures embroidered on the wall-tapestries so that they moved a little in the shifting half-light as they so often did. Elizabeth stepped softly through the threshold, wishing she were well past them. And only then, when it was too late, did she see a figure at the far end detach itself from the more shadowy ones and move into the circle of lamplight beneath the archway.
Elizabeth's hand flew to her mouth, stifling an unborn scream.
It was the King himself standing there.
“He overlooked my part in the Buckingham affair. If he sees me now he will kill me,” she thought in panic. The livery badge crumpled in her hand would be death wa
rrant enough.
But his head was turned away from her. He was in his damasked bedgown and looking along the passage that branched off at right angles towards his bedroom. More over he was twisting the rings up and down his long fingers as he always did when ill at ease. Something in the nervous stealth of his movements suggested that he might be watching for someone or something.
Elizabeth was certain that he had not seen her.
She had only to step back as silently as she had come. To retreat into one of the other rooms and hide behind some piece of furniture. Or gain the backstairs, perhaps. And God would deliver her.
But before she could bring her petrified limbs to move Richard must have detected some sound. He swung round, his hand flying to his dagger. Quick as a man attacked from behind he had drawn it. Standing there motionless and mercilessly illumined, Elizabeth could imagine the sharp steel in her heart. She felt the blood drain from her face and was powerless to move. She just stood there looking at him across the length of the gallery with terrified and beseeching eyes.
She knew the strength of his wrists, the rare but terrible unleashing of his wrath. All the fine plans which had filled her mind for days were wiped out as if they had never been. Chance had delivered her up to him. “Now,” she thought, “I shall join my brothers.”
But the moments passed and Richard did not move. He only stared at her with a terror surpassing her own. Seeing his shrinking body and contorted face, coherent thought began to come back to her. For the first time it struck her as odd that beneath his damask bedgown he should be wearing a mail shirt and poignard belt. Instinctively she knew that he always wore it now, by day and night; and the inconsequent thought occurred to her that perhaps this had been the real reason why he would not sleep with Anne. He hadn't wanted Anne to know. In case she guessed at the fears which are bred by guilt…
The Tudor rose Page 15
