Elizabeth I (119 page)

“She comes,” Sir Charles came to tell us. “From the tower I saw a rider on the road, approaching slowly. I think it is she.”

It was midafternoon. Catherine and I stood with our host and waited. Eventually a slight dust cloud signaled someone coming over the rise, and a dun horse appeared, its rider swaying, her hand on her hat. She was dressed all in black. Behind her rode an attendant.

Servants rushed out to welcome her and take her horse. She dismounted, stiffly, and walked toward us. She was no longer young but had not crossed the line into appearing elderly. Her expression was masklike, and the smile she gave as she came closer seemed as false as one drawn on a sheet of paper.

She bowed, tipping the top of her hat upward. Its black feathers trembled. “Your Majesty,” she said. She stayed bowed a long time.

“Please rise, Cousin,” I said.

She did so and stood looking at me, face to face. Then she truly smiled, and her face became fluid. “Catherine. Your Majesty.”

“Welcome,” said Sir Charles. “I am pleased that you honor me by gathering here.”

“It is you who honor us,” I said. “This house has been closed to us ever since we were scattered in many directions. Now we have come home.”

We stood awkwardly until Sir Charles said, “I will be pleased to show you every corner and niche. The house has many secrets.”

While he directed Lettice’s attendant to her room with their baggage, I turned to her. I decided not to comment on the black, but we made an odd contrast, for I was all in white, my favorite “color.” Both were equally flattering to red hair. Her choice signaled mourning, mine virginity—the only two colors that served as definitive labels for others to read.

“Shall we sit?” Several benches were scattered about the garden; we sought one under the shade of a sycamore tree. “You must be tired,” I said to Lettice. “Would you prefer to rest in your room?”

She cocked her head. “No. I am not to that stage yet.” She walked, straight-backed, to the bench.

As we settled under the tree, several birds flew off, rising with a rush of wings.

“I would make a comment about three old crows frightening off the sprightlier birds,” said Catherine, “but I fear it might seem rude.”

“I give you license to say whatever you please,” I said. “Lettice, do you agree?”

“Yes,” she said, but her voice was icy.

“Very well, then!” said Catherine. “It’s sad that, cousins though we may be, Lettice, I cannot remember the last time I saw you.”

“Nor I, you.” Then silence. Diplomatic silence, for they knew very well when they had last met.

This was even worse than I had imagined. Why had I let Catherine talk me into this? I would plunge in, break the barrier, for better or worse. “I remember,” I said. “It was when you accosted me in the passageway at Whitehall and attempted to give me a gift.”

As I knew she would, she rose to the bait. “Accosted you? You had avoided me, insulted me, after your invitation to meet with you.” Her eyes, beneath the brim of her hat, were narrowed.

“The invitation I was forced to extend, because of your unruly son, who never knew when to cease and desist. You have heard the old country saying ‘Lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink’? I wanted to teach your son that lesson. Alas, he was a slow learner.”

“I did not come here to hear my son insulted.” She stood up.

“Sit down, Lettice,” I said. How fine to be a queen and for that to be a command. She sank down. “I have no wish to insult anyone. He was headstrong, as we both know. But he was loyal to his mother, thoughtful of her feelings, and I honor that. So many children disobey the fifth commandment. He did not, and we both appreciate what that meant.”

“But before the meeting in the passageway, I cannot think when last I saw you,” said Catherine, ever the peacemaker.

“I have not been at court since 1578,” she said. “Ten years before the Armada.”

“Then we must search our childhood,” I said, “and that is what we are here for. Lettice, did your mother ever speak of this place?”

Lettice smiled for the first time. Was she relieved to have the obvious stated and over with? “Yes. In her memories, it was an idyllic time. The country. Butterflies. Fields. Horses. Hawking. When her father, William Carey, died, she was only four. She remembered him swinging her over wildflowers in a great circle, her feet flying out.

“You are the only one who met Mary Boleyn,” continued Lettice. She was addressing me. “You are the only one of us alive when she was.”

Was she asking me a question? Underlining my age? “Yes, I did. After the—After I lost my mother, I was shuffled around from one house to another. Sometimes I was brought to court to see my father and his newest wife. Mostly I was kept in the country, far from where the sight of me might give offense. I loved Aunt Mary Boleyn. She was warm and encouraging, and I wanted to call her ‘mother.’ She had a way of looking at me, paying close attention, that spun my little head. No one else paid any attention to me in those days.”

“Well, they’ve made up for it now!” said Lettice.

The bold remark made me laugh; it did not anger me. I was relieved that she had felt free to say it. We were finally making headway.

“I think those first twenty-five years of vicissitude prepared me well for the flattery that followed,” I said. “It should be a requirement for rulers: be castigated, ignored, and insulted. It teaches you to weigh the adulation that comes with the office, to know its true worth.”

“Was she—was she pretty?” asked Lettice. Of course she would want to know that.

“To me she was. But I was inclined in her favor because of her kindness to me. I remember she had golden hair—unusual in an adult. And that her skin was exquisite—pale but all one hue, no mottling.” I thought hard. “Her voice was low, confiding.” I paused. “I am so sorry you never knew her. Yet both of you carry her traits. Catherine, your voice is very like hers, and you have her kindness. Lettice, she was catnip to men, and so are you.”

Lettice laughed. “I am not in her category,” she said. “She indulged herself with two kings, and had two husbands.”

“And what two kings!” cried the normally staid Catherine. “The young François, King of France, and the King of England!”

“Yes, and in short order,” admitted Lettice. “It earned her a vicious reputation. You know how the French are. No sooner do they bed you than they discard you and mock you.”

“And you know this personally?” I teased her. I—teasing Lettice! A miracle—a miracle wrought by Catherine.

“No. I stayed far away from the French. I was satisfied with the English.”

“And they were satisfied with you,” I said. “A good bargain.” I laughed. “In any case, you had three husbands. So you need not apologize for finishing behind her.”

“Was it a race?” she asked.

“Always,” I said. “We seek to outdistance our forebears.”

“Have you done so?” Oh, she was bold.

“Even to ask myself that question is to be unfilial,” I said. “But let me say that if my father, who never imagined I would come to the throne, or if I did, that I could manage even to hold it, could visit us now, I think he would be—surprised. And pleased.”

“He would be in awe!” said Catherine.

“I do not think my father would be in awe of his own child,” I said. “But I do wish I could see him, could show him what I have done in his footsteps.”

“He would be in awe,” insisted Catherine.

“We will never know,” I said. That was the sorrow of it—the final barrier of death. We can imagine, but we will never know.

“Did she leave you anything?” asked Lettice.

“No,” said Catherine. “By the time she died, she had little to bequeath to grandchildren. She was the wife of a poor man. True, she inherited the lands and manors in Essex from the Boleyns, but that is not anything to leave a child.”

“She left a few personal things to my mother,” said Lettice. “Gowns, letters, a necklace—as you well know!”

“Lettice, I am sorry about that,” I said. “I was unkind, and I apologize.”

“It is well enough,” she said. “I am happy still to keep it.”

“What if I demanded it now?”

She looked me in the eye. “I would say, ‘He who will not when he may, when he wants, he shall have nay.’ You are fond of country sayings, are you not?”

“And now you turn them on me,” I said. “As well you should. A gift can be offered only once. And as I told you, I have a similar necklace. I brought it,” I admitted. It had seemed fitting, since I would be in the place where it originated.

“So did I,” she said.

“We must wear them together,” I said. I reached out and touched her arm. “I would like that.”

Leicester, Essex, my father, all the men dividing us seemed ghosts, ever present but impotent.

Catherine looked from side to side. “We are the three patterns of womanhood,” she said. “One of us has had three husbands and been widowed three times. Another is unmarried, and a pure virgin. And I have been wife to the same man for forty years next spring. What other variation can there be?”

“I think that is all,” said Lettice. “Both of you are happy, and so you can recommend the path you have followed. But to be widowed three times—no. If being catnip to men leads to this, I would not wish the trait to be passed on. Alas, my daughter Penelope has inherited it in full. It seems undiminished as it passes down the generations.”

Catherine stood up. “I need to rest,” she said. “We can meet again at dinner.”

Her abruptness puzzled me. She did not seem unwell. Perhaps she wanted to leave Lettice and me alone. She made her way along the graveled garden paths toward the house.

Lettice echoed my thoughts. “She wants us to be alone.”

“Perhaps. She does not seem ill, but—”

Lettice leaned forward. I looked at her face. Older, but still lovely. Well, that is the way of nature. It ebbs slowly. “You are a beautiful woman, Lettice,” I said. “The most beautiful in our family.”

“Much good has it ever done me!” she said.

“I would argue it has done you much good,” I answered.

“As you like,” she said.

“It is better to be beautiful than to be ugly,” I said. “There should be a Scripture verse about that, but never mind,” I said. “We all know it is true.”

“You envy me,” she stated.

“I envy your face,” I said.

“Well, it is fading now,” she said.

“But only after it awarded you prizes,” I said.

“Oh, Elizabeth!” she said. “That was so long ago. All of it. I had my face; you had your office. I would rather have been a queen than to have bewitched men, or been the mother of lost sons.”

Yes. So would I. I had had the better lot.

That evening Sir Charles and his household invited us to a formal supper. In the dining hall we took our places at the table, glowing with candles down its length. Sir Charles had set up a thronelike chair for me at the head.