Rival to the Queen Page 9

  I looked at Frank with tears of vexation in my eyes.

  “If only there were a court of law where unkind rumor could be tried and condemned!”

  “Never mind,” Frank said fondly. “You are certainly the prettiest forward virgin at court. I see how the men all admire you, the married ones as well as the unmarried ones. I’d marry you myself if I wasn’t your brother—and about to go to sea.”

  Frank’s news about his upcoming departure surprised and delighted me. He had achieved his ambition, he would be sailing in a few days. The elderly master of a small coastal freighter had offered to take him on as an apprentice, provided he worked hard to learn seamanship.

  “The old man says if I take to it, he’ll train me up to take his place one day,” my brother told me, his pleasure clear from the light in his eyes. “He’s getting on in years, and has no son, so there is no one for him to leave the boat to. Father disapproves, of course, but then, I’m not like you. I don’t intend to let father govern my life.”

  Frank’s last words stung, and even though he quickly saw that I was wounded by what he said and did what he could to soften his meaning, I continued to feel the sting after he went away and I was left to ponder the truth of his observation.

  He was right, of course. I did intend to follow father’s plan for me. It was what all girls did, why should I be different? But then, why shouldn’t I go my own way? Why did I lack the strength to tell father I didn’t want to marry Walter, I wanted to wait. To try to make a better choice.

  For the fact was that since coming to know Lord Robert, I felt certain I was bound to be discontented with almost anyone else.

  If I was honest with myself I had to admit that I admired him, as all the women of the court did. He was, quite simply, magnificent, his tall figure elegantly blazoned in splendid velvet doublets with gold slashings, his high hats with blue feathers (the style in that year, the year the queen nearly died of the pox and the rest of us were relieved that she did not), his flashing diamond-studded ruffs (Walter would never be seen in such things) and bejeweled belts and shoebuckles—each day a different gorgeous costume. Robert was the stuff of dreams to the women of the court.

  Yet he belonged to the queen. That was evident. So he wasn’t to be touched. No one approached him or flirted with him, except the boldest and least prudent girls and women, and they were soon sent off by the queen with a warning and an order never to return.

  To be sure, we all saw clearly that Lord Robert had flaws. He was boastful. He was egotistical. He loved looking at himself in his finery in the royal looking-glasses. And there were still whispers about how Amy Dudley died, and his possibly being a murderer. (Such rumors never seem to die.)

  But with it all, he was likable. Walter was not! Walter was the sort of man you wanted to shut away in a room somewhere far off while you danced and laughed and had a good time. The sort of man you might not be sorry to discover had been sent to another country, or had moved to the Orkney Islands, or—heaven help me, but I did think this—been lost at sea.

  Amid these dire fantasies I was brought back to reality by my father, who came to me one day about six months after the queen’s recovery and told me that he had chosen a day for my wedding to Walter. We were to be married, he said, in a month’s time. The queen had agreed to grace our wedding ceremony with her presence.

  “Oh, and Lettie, the best thing about it all is, Walter’s second cousin Roger Wilbraham has agreed to marry Cecelia on the same day. Imagine! You with your bad reputation and Cecelia with her pockmarked face—and you will both have husbands! Thanks be to Providence, my girls will be married off at last!”

  EIGHTEEN

  We were wed at court, in the queen’s own private chapel, very early in the morning—so early, in fact, that the birds had barely begun to chirp. I was in my twenty-third year, Walter a little younger, though he did not like me to remind him of that.

  It was a hasty ceremony, because the queen was impatient by nature and disliked weddings (probably they reminded her that she had never had one) and kept complaining to Lord Robert that our ceremony was making her late for her morning ride. Mistress Clinkerte had helped me dress in the lovely gown mother insisted on providing for me, a silken gown, bombasted in the latest fashion, the sleeves worked by a silkwoman in silver edging with rosebuds embroidered in white and pink. The ruff was of lace with a wire beneath it to make it stand out around my face. The petticoats were of soft Bruges linen. I had never had such finery before, and when mother saw me in my beautiful gown on my wedding morning she wept—in part because of all the ale she had drunk the night before, it must be said—and told me I had never looked more pleasing and that she hoped I would be a good wife to Walter.

  Cecelia too had a costly gown, but there was no disguising her plump form and the contrast between us was remarked upon. Her fiancé, the stout, rather choleric Roger Wilbraham, a man of forty-five who had already buried three wives, did not appear to favor her, or even to take much notice of her; Walter had confided to me that the price of his cousin’s consent to the marriage was the office of Collector of Fines and surveyor for Salisbury and the additional sinecure of Deputy Master of the King’s Ships, two valuable perquisites that together would bring him at least fifty pounds a year. My father had been glad to arrange these appointments; thanks to him, Roger Wilbraham would be a comparatively rich man. Cecelia would have every comfort—except, perhaps, the comfort of knowing that Roger had married her out of love and not greed.

  As soon as the ceremony was concluded and the queen hurried away to have her morning ride we sat down to a wedding breakfast of stuffed partridge and venison pasties, grapes and pears from a faraway hothouse, all washed down with good malmsey and muscatel. Walter informed us all that the venison came from one of his does, and proceeded to describe, at some length and in overmuch detail, the particular hunt at which the doe had been killed—which caused a silence to fall at the table.

  “I have ordered some good hunters from Ireland,” Lord Robert said presently, in an effort to revive the conversation. “Perhaps you would like to try them. The queen will have first choice, naturally, but those she rejects might suit you well.” He paused, then added, “She does not spare her mounts—or her officials, for that matter.”

  This made us laugh, as it was meant to, though my father did not join in the amusement.

  “Her favorite, Bay Gentle, was run off his legs last week and had to have a dressing for his forefeet.”

  “You have a new fine stud, do you not?” Walter asked. “A stallion from Turin?”

  “Great Savoy, yes. I have high hopes for him.”

  Robert’s brother Ambrose raised his glass in a toast. “To all stallions and new husbands, on this their wedding day!”

  We drank a toast, but the mood at the table remained subdued—in part, I felt sure, because the hour was so early, and we were all a little drowsy, but there was a more obvious cause. Walter was droning on about his favorite pastime—hunting and horses—instead of admiring and cherishing me, and my new brother-in-law Roger Wilbraham, his red face stony, was wolfing down his food in the greatest haste and paying no attention whatever to the rest of us. Without waiting for the third course to be served Roger abruptly took his leave, bowing curtly to us all (and not even kissing his bride Cecelia on the cheek) and saying something about having to attend to his new duties.

  Cecelia’s lip quivered. I was afraid she would burst into tears. Instead she smiled bravely, for Lord Robert, who was signaling to the musicians to play a lively tune, held out his hand to her and led her in a dance. At once the mood began to lighten. Walter and I joined in the dancing, as did my father and mother and even Mistress Clinkerte, whose partner was the spry elderly equerry Whaffer who, it was said, had been a page at the court of Henry VIII as a boy.

  We whirled and dipped in a country dance, and later there was a disguising, with Lord Robert and his brother dressed up as Knights of Pegasus seeking the Fortunate Isles. It was
all foolishness, as disguisings invariably are, but foolishness was just what we needed. We laughed and applauded and I felt very grateful to Lord Robert for turning our melancholy wedding breakfast into a mirthful celebration.

  The morning having been whiled away, we returned to our duties, Cecelia and I among the queen’s ladies and Walter to his desk and his lists. I was very aware, however, that with each advancing hour my wedding night was approaching. I would be put to bed with Walter for the first time. We would become one flesh. We would enjoy what my father called the sins of the flesh. What would those sins—those pleasures—be like?

  When at last the hour came and Mistress Clinkerte helped me to put on my black satin dressing-gown my stomach lurched and my heart was beating rapidly. Would I be pleasing to Walter? (All I had ever heard, all my life, was that girls and women had to be pleasing to men; no one ever mentioned the question of whether men might or might not be pleasing to the girls and women they married.) I looked at myself in the longest looking-glass in the candlelit bedchamber. The black dressing-gown clung to my shape in a flattering way, outlining my prominent breasts and slender waist, the widening at my hips, the long taper of my legs, which no man had ever seen bare, not even my father. My skin glowed golden, my curling auburn hair, which Mistress Clinkerte had brushed out so that its sheen gleamed like the satin of my gown, my bright blue eyes with their thick, upward-tilted lashes, my lips—inviting lips, as it seemed to me: all this held an undeniable loveliness.

  Yes, I told myself. I would be pleasing to Walter.

  Yet in that same moment an unsought wish flooded my thoughts. I wished with all my heart that this bodily loveliness of mine were going to be offered, not to Walter, but to Lord Robert.

  An image came into my mind, of me, just as I was then, in nothing but my black dressing-gown, running from the bedchamber into Lord Robert’s private quarters, giving myself to him, pleading with him to take my virginity.

  What a fearful fancy! A wicked fancy, my father would surely call it if the thing were known to him. A thought put into my mind by the devil himself.

  I blushed at the thought, and did my best to banish it from my mind. Yet when I was put to bed and Walter was brought in, in his nightshirt, his broad shoulders, thick neck and strong legs promising virility, his small eyes impatient with lust, a hound alert for the scent of prey, my heart sank at the sight of him. I smiled, I yielded to his touch (only a trifle unwillingly), I tried not to tense my body for the assault of him, an assault I knew must come, and that I could not avoid. But within, where my feelings were hid, I held back. Outwardly, I did what I knew I must, holding myself taut against the pain and bearing it without crying out, hearing Walter’s grunts of satisfaction and taking them for pleasure. Perhaps foolishly, I waited to feel pleasure myself—for after all, if, as my father always said, lust is the devil’s playground, then surely the pleasure of lust is the devil’s lure.

  But there was no pleasure in the wet stickiness between my thighs, or in the stink of blood that stained the bedlinens, or even in the memory of Walter’s wet mouth on mine and his grasping hands clenched tightly around my waist as he thrust himself inside me. There was only a wound between my legs, and in my heart, and a man I did not love lying beside me, lost in the indifference of sleep.

  NINETEEN

  My beautiful daughter was born before we had been married a year, and somewhat to our disappointment, she was not the son Walter hoped for. She was a sunny, bouncy child, wriggling and full of energy almost from the moment I first held her in my arms. I chose her name, Penelope. Walter said he didn’t care what name I gave her, but that when our son was born, he would be named Walter Devereux and would in time inherit the lands and fortune he himself held.

  My daughter consumed nearly all my attention for a time, and I was surprised at how involving I found her to be. She gazed up at me from her cradle, her wide blue eyes so clear and trusting, and before long she began to smile, and then to sit up all by herself, and would have crawled all across the floor if her nurse had let her. I allowed her on our bed—though Walter disapproved, when he was there to notice—and in warm weather, I went along when she was taken outdoors, into the garden, and put down briefly amid the flowers. She shrieked with pleasure, and one of her first words, I remember, was “roses.”

  By this time, however, my stomach had begun to bulge again and I was feeling poorly. Another baby was on its way. The midwife assured me that my nearly constant sickness was a sign my child would be a boy—that and the fact that I was growing very heavy behind and in my legs. I told Walter about these hopeful signs, and he smiled and patted my belly from time to time and called it “young Walter.” I was so ill and uncomfortable during the last several months of my pregnancy that I simply had to give up all effort at activity and stay in bed. My mother and father were both concerned about me, and came to visit me. Father brought a physician from court who did little, other than to advise me to obey the midwife.

  “Will I have a son, do you think?” I asked him.

  “Only God knows that,” was all he would say, even after I mentioned the signs the midwife had detected. “You must pray for one,” he added, “just as we all pray for our queen to give England a son and heir.” The queen continued in her unmarried state, and it was still hoped that she would marry Lord Robert and have a child to succeed her. But month after month went by, and it did not happen.

  At last I felt my pains begin, and they were much worse than with Penelope. At first I was able to bear them fairly well, but after many hours I felt my strength ebbing and I could tell from the look on the midwife’s face that she had doubts about my ability to bring my child into the world uninjured. I am not someone who yields to morbid thoughts, but I confess that in the second day of that long and anguished labor, I began to fear death.

  I called for Walter, and for the priest from our parish, and also asked that little Penelope be brought in to cheer me. But Penelope only cried, and had to be taken out of the room by her nurse. And Walter, his boots muddy from tramping through the thickets following a stag, did not know what to do or how to comfort me. Childbearing was after all women’s work, and my failure to bear my child (not my weakness and neediness) clearly distressed him. In the end he threw up his hands and went out, leaving the priest to bless me and ask, in a tone that made me even more worried about my survival, that the Lord’s will would be done.

  I felt a raging thirst. “Wine! Give me wine!” I cried with as much vigor as I could muster, and continued to insist even though the midwife refused me, saying that if I drank wine my child might be born dead.

  I was by this time half-delirious, and I remember hearing myself swear loudly at the servants, one of whom at length brought me some wine and obeyed me when I told her not to water it but to let me drink as much of it as I could hold, at a draught. Fortified by the wine, I decided to make a final effort to give birth to my child, even if it cost me my life. I strained as hard as I could, grunting and groaning, twisting the bedlinens and writhing while the midwife pushed down hard on my belly. I have never, before or since, felt such pain. It seemed to go on forever. But in the end I suddenly felt as though my body was being torn open, and then I heard, or thought I heard, a shrill cry.

  I must have fainted, for when I woke it was dark and there was no one with me in the room. I saw by the light of the single bedside candle that the cradle was empty, and for a long terrible moment I thought, my baby has been born dead.

  I wept then, from exhaustion and sorrow, and the sound of my weeping brought the wetnurse and two servants into the room. The wetnurse, I was overjoyed to see, was carrying my baby.

  But she did not look at all content; she appeared vexed.

  “You have another daughter, madam,” she said curtly.

  I held out my arms and took the tiny, red-faced baby. She was sleeping. I hugged her to me and murmured to her.

  “Has the master been informed?” I asked.

  “Yes, madam. He was not a
t all pleased.”

  “Never mind, little girl,” I whispered to the child in my arms. “I thank the Lord for you, given to me in such pain and travail. I am thankful we are both alive.”

  I decided to name her Dorothy, a name I knew means Gift of God. She was, and is, my gift and I can never put into words how much I love her.

  As a married woman I ceased to be a maid of honor and became a lady of the bedchamber to the queen, as did Cecelia. We were expected to serve at court for at least several months a year. I looked forward to my time at court for although it meant serving a capricious mistress it also meant diversion and amusement, sharing in the light flirtations, celebrations and chivalrous pastimes that made up the queen’s days and nights when she was not attending to important matters or meeting with her councilors.

  Walter too was at court a great deal, or doing the queen’s business. He assisted my father, and was often sent on important errands and missions, entrusted with increasingly more important tasks as he proved himself loyal and dependable. Soon after Dorothy was born Queen Elizabeth sent Walter to Ireland to oversee the handing over of some royal lands from the Irish rebels. He accomplished this assignment swiftly and without difficulties, which impressed her. She soon sent him back on similar business. In all he was gone nearly half a year—our first long separation—and in his absence I was in charge of Chartley and our other estates, a considerable responsibility.

  I learned a great deal in that time, asking the stewards to instruct me and enjoying much of what they had to teach about the management of our farms and orchards, the names and occupations of the peasants and villagers who worked them, the needs of our animals and crops and the challenges of blight and rot, drought and unseasonable weather.

  Chartley itself, the old castle behind its thick grey stone surrounding wall, was a cold, drafty home even in summer. Walter’s father refused to live there, preferring his smaller but much warmer lodge in the south. At Chartley the children needed fires in their nursery all year round, and the great hall felt as though icicles should be dropping from the ceiling. As if to compensate for this major drawback the beauty of the gardens delighted me. I loved to walk with the children down the long pebbled path between the tall flowering bushes wet with dew, through the kitchen garden, out to the greenhouses where fruit was cultivated even in winter and roses and rare plants from faraway places bloomed and shed their leaves and bloomed again.