Young Bess (9 page)

Bess’s knees went taut as whipcord in her grasp. If she did not hold on to them tight she would be springing up to fly at the Ash-Cat, shake her and scream that she was a liar.

She kept silent. Cat Ashley, disappointed in her lack of interest, said, ‘Well, and I thought you would be pleased. He’d be your step-stepfather then, and your guardian as like as not.’

‘
I
don’t want him as a stepfather,’ said Bess, loosening her grip on her knees with a jerk. ‘I don’t believe the Queen wants him as a husband either. Why should she?’

It was a good move, for Mrs Ashley at once poured out a protesting flood of all the reasons, among them some very flattering to the Admiral, which Bess heard with little painful stabs of pleasure – the finest man in England, so handsome, tall and splendid in his bearing, with none of his brother’s cold stateliness but all the more imposing just because he didn’t trouble about it; there was a careless magnificence about him, like that of a man born to be King. Fierce as a lion in battle, yet as merry as a schoolboy, and that grand voice of his, it would put courage into a mouse.

‘But the Queen – isn’t she rather old for him?’

‘
That
she’s not, at just thirty-four, and he a year or two older, though they neither of them look it. Besides – this had to be a secret while your father lived – I don’t know that I’d better even now—’

‘Now, my Ash-Cat, hand up your titbit; I’ll never stop twisting your tail till you do.’

Bess had seized Ashley’s little finger and was pulling it round and round. Laughing and jerking her hand away, Ashley disgorged the titbit; Catherine Parr and Tom Seymour had been privately betrothed before her marriage to the King. When he signified his choice of her as his sixth wife, there was nothing for her to do but to give up Tom, for to have married him against the royal will would have only meant utter ruin and probably death for them both. She had been a faithful wife and devoted nurse to Henry for three and a half years, and he had been the third elderly widower she had had to marry.

Now at last she was free to take her own choice and still young and pretty enough to enjoy it. She had already been having some confidential meetings with the Admiral in London even before the funeral – though that was all quite correct and above-board, since he had been a member of King Henry’s household and was now one of the Council of Regency, and had many things to discuss with her about her royal charges. ‘But depend upon it, they’ve found time to discuss their own affairs too, and what I say is, the sooner the merrier: she’s a sweet kind creature and deserves her luck, and I wish it with all my heart – don’t you too, my Lady Bess?’ she added, suddenly surprised by the child’s grave silence.

But Bess, having got all she wanted out of Ashley, was quick to assume a reproving air. ‘It’s a serious matter,’ she said, ‘and you oughtn’t to talk of it, Ashley. Oh, to
me
, yes,’ she put in quickly, at Ashley’s indignant movement – besides, she might want Ashley to talk again. ‘But not to anyone else. The Council may not approve, and I know Edward Seymour hates his brother—’

‘So do I,
and
I know why. Jealous!’

‘Jealousy is a dreadful thing,’ said Bess virtuously.

Ashley gave a quick look at the demure face. ‘That’s too good to be true. Are you mocking me, my Lady Mischief?’

‘No, only myself,’ murmured Bess, but went on rapidly, ‘At the least, they’d make a horrible scandal if it were talked about so soon after the King’s death.’

‘Talk?
I
talk! It was only to please Your Highness, and I’ve found you are to be trusted. You can be sure I would never talk to anyone else, never, on any dangerous matter.’

‘Can I, Cat? Can I?’ She said it slowly, reflectively, and those clear, light-coloured eyes of hers seemed to Cat to be looking right through her. Was it a child who spoke and looked thus? It was more like some ageless Sibyl.

Cat had flushed to the roots of her hair; she took her young mistress’s hand in both of hers and said, as though she were giving the oath of fealty, ‘I swear to Your Highness, you can be sure of me.’

Bess leapt up, flicked Ashley on the nose, cried, ‘Silly old Ash-Cat, what are you so solemn about? Look! the shower is over and the sun’s come out!’ and dashed into the garden.

It was a large and charming garden, enclosed within its high red brick wall that was only ten years old, but already mellowed to a warm rosy hue, and had small fruit trees splayed against it. Some old trees and shrubs had been allowed to remain, though they interrupted the symmetry of the formal rectangular flowerbeds and knot gardens and paths edged with box hedges a few inches high. In the wall at the far end was set a postern gate which opened on to the reedy marshy fields, bare of hedges but with outcrops of scrub and forest, that spread away into a blue distance of low wooded hills, the heights of Highgate and Hampstead.

And across this open country, by the single road that led through the village of Chelsea to the Manor, Tom Seymour came riding this windy stormy sunny afternoon in late February.

He saw the bright sails of the boats on the Thames scudding as if on dry land beyond the trees, which were still bare and purple-black, but flushed here and there with the palest glimmer of gold; it might have been the willows budding, or only wet twigs in the sunlight. The square stone tower of the church on the riverbank looked almost white against a blue-black stormcloud, for the sun was shining on
it, and the golden weathercock flashed through the tossing branches as if some exotic bird had strayed up-river with the seagulls that squalled and swirled around it, making wheels and arrows of white light.

He came to the new red wall of the Manor garden, dismounted and gave his horse’s bridle to the groom that rode with him, opened the postern gate with a key that he pulled out of a little purse in his belt; and there he stood for a moment, quite still. The formal flowerbeds were glistening with wet earth, but along the borders crocuses pierced them with little flecks of coloured light. Some hazel shrubs dangled their catkins in the wind in a shimmer of faintly yellow tassels, and a blackbird shouted its early song as it balanced itself precariously on the topmost twig of a taller tree, swinging and bowing to the wind. The small stone fishpond reflected the sunlight in a mirror of gold. Round and round its edge a childish figure in purple silk was running, dancing, leaping, tossing a golden ball high into the air, and catching it again. A gleaming cloud of hair blew out from under her cap as she danced, and she shrieked as the wind blew her ball all but into the pond, retrieved it in a wild, sideways leap, and all but fell in herself, laughed on a note that seemed to answer the blackbird’s, and pranced on.

At first glance it was as though one of the crocuses in all its sheen of purple and gold had sprung into human stature and movement. Crocuses and the early song of birds, and a laugh as shrill and wild, and those darting movements, erratic as a dragonfly – what was it they were all bringing back to him? In an instant he had it – an evening in early spring just fourteen years ago, as vivid as if it were this month, and Nan
Bullen’s slim form flashing out upon the terrace at Hampton Court, swirling and trailing her bright plumage as she turned from one to another – and then laughed. ‘Lord, how I wish I had an apple!… Such an incredible fierce desire to eat apples! Do you know what the King says? He says it means I am with child. But I tell him “No!” No, it couldn’t be, no, no, no!’

And again that laugh that had rung on and on in his ears, so that he still seemed at times to hear it, especially on these cold spring evenings so like herself – sudden, harsh, brilliant, changeful.

Thus unceremoniously had the advent of this girl, the Princess Elizabeth, been announced to the world six months before her birth – in a woman’s ‘No’; not meant to be believed.

And here she was herself, dancing on the verge of womanhood, and till this moment he had not perceived it.

Suddenly she saw him standing there, stopped dead, letting her ball fall to the ground, while she stared as if at a ghost, swooped to pick it up in an action like the plunge of a
long-legged
foal, and then at last advanced slowly towards him.

‘How did you get there?’ she asked, almost in a whisper. ‘The garden was empty, and now – you’ve appeared.’

‘By magic. You were thinking of me, and I obeyed your wishes.’

‘I was
not
!’ she exclaimed indignantly.

‘No need to toss your head. All those golden catkins on it are tossing hard enough without your help.’

‘I call them lambs’ tails.’ She flung away from him and broke off a couple of their branches. He noticed how abrupt and angular her movements had become again as soon as she
ceased to dance, and yet there was still something of that wild grace in them. But what had happened to her manners, and was she angry just because he had startled her? He at once became the magnificent courtier, sweeping his hat to the ground in a low bow.

‘I implore pardon for not recognising Your Highness earlier. I took you for a wood nymph and now I see my mistake. You are a great princess – are you not?’

She swung round to him again, her face flaming.

‘I won’t be mocked,’ she said, ‘I won’t, I won’t!’ and stamped her foot, all the more like a wilful colt.

He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s the matter, child? Here’s a nice welcome for me after these weeks! I’d hoped day after day to see you at Whitehall, but no, you had a cold and had to keep your bed – your flowerbed I should say,’ as she stepped back from him inadvertently over the little box hedge. Even Bess’s indignation had to break up in laughter as she shook the wet earth off her heel.

‘It was only a church cold,’ she said.

‘Now do you know I guessed as much! What’s your golden apple, my Lady Atalanta?’ and he took the pomander ball from her hands. ‘Remember that if, like her, you embark on a race for glory, you must never turn aside, as she did, for golden apples.’

Turning it round, he saw the watch-dial set in it and exclaimed, ‘Is this how you kill time?’

‘It won’t go anyway. It stopped’ – she paused and stole a look at him under drooping white eyelids, then finished on a note of exquisite melancholy – ‘on the night my father died.’

‘What a shocking little liar you are! Do you ever say a word
you mean, or that you mean anyone to believe?’

‘Not often. What is the use?’

He put the pomander back into her hand and his own hand over hers, holding it and the golden ball together, and she shivered at the warm strong grasp. His voice too was warm and strong; what had Ashley said of it – that it would put courage into a mouse? But it did not put courage into her; she wanted to burst into tears, to fling herself into his arms, to fasten herself tight up inside his coat and never have to face the world again; and go on feeling those deep tones tingling through her like the throbbing low notes of a harp.

‘What has hurt you, little Princess?’

She struck away his hand and ran from him, turned at the edge of the pond and flung her pomander at him with all her force.

‘Catch!’ she cried on a high, merry note, but her face was that of a little fury, and she had thrown the hard gold ball to hit, not to be caught.

He dodged it and dashed after her, seized her by the shoulders and swung her round to him. ‘You little wild cub!’ he exclaimed, laughing, but like her his face was in earnest. And he held her a moment before he spoke again.

‘Are you so much a cub after all? It won’t be long before you’re grown up. Bess, will you marry me?’

‘You’re laughing at me again.’

‘And why not? Can’t one marry and laugh?’

‘Then you’ve only just thought of it this moment.’

‘What of that? Everything has to have a beginning.’

‘It’s monstrous, why you’re—’ No, she must not say she had just heard he was practically betrothed to her
stepmother. She finished, ‘You’re nearly three times as old as me.’

‘But in ten years I’ll be only twice as old.’

‘Ah, you
have
thought of it before! You couldn’t have done that sum in your head on the instant.’

‘Witch! Will you have me?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m too young.’

‘Not yet husband-high?’

‘Oh, as to that!’ She had nearly said, ‘I’m already as high as the little Queen,’ but she changed her ground. ‘I shan’t think of marrying for years yet, if ever, and I’m in mourning for my father – for two years at least,’

‘Tell that to the Merchant Venturers!’

She was casting wildly for her reasons. Suddenly she remembered what she had said to Ashley of himself and the Queen – an objection of even more force in her own case. ‘I couldn’t marry without the Council’s consent – I’d lose my place in the Succession.’

‘As much as your place is worth, hey?’ He was grinning, but not very pleasantly. ‘And why shouldn’t they consent?’

‘Oh well, there’s your brother—’

‘There is indeed my brother. I’ll see about that. And now answer for yourself. Wouldn’t you like me for a husband when you’re a little older? Wouldn’t you, my tawny lion cub? No claws out now!

‘Who said that?’

‘Tom Wyatt, of your mother. And now another Tom is saying it of you. God’s soul, it will be a work to tame you!’

‘I’ll not be tamed by you or any. I’ll be myself alone, always, I—’

He put a hand under her chin and forced it up to shut her mouth. Then he bent slowly, his eyes laughing down into hers, his face came nearer and nearer, she knew he was going to kiss her on that forcibly closed mouth, and she stopped trying to move her head this way and that; she stood breathless, her whole body stiff and taut in expectation.

A woman’s voice came ringing out into the garden, soaring on a clear high note of happiness, calling to them, laughing at sight of them, winging towards them, and Queen Catherine came running into the garden.

Bess wriggled furiously, trying to get her chin free of that grip of his finger and thumb, but it held like a vice and the Admiral never stirred.

‘Come here, my Pussy-Cat,’ he called, ‘and tell me how to deal with this vixen of yours.’

He had even taken her nickname for the Queen! Bess was aghast at his impudence – and his duplicity, for here he was laughing with Catherine and telling her practically all he had just been saying to herself, as though it were nothing but a joke, or – far more horrible thought – was it
not
duplicity? Had it really all been only a joke, which she had been fool enough to take seriously?

‘I’ve been asking if she’ll have me for a husband when she’s older, but she’ll have none of me. What’s more, she’s flung her watch at me – there’s a fine way to pass the time!’

He let go of her at last and strolled over to pick up the pomander and show the broken watch in it to Catherine, and Catherine scolded Bess lightly for her carelessness with her possessions, just as though she were a child. But then she was a child again now; they both seemed to think so; they did not mind her being there while they chatted together with gay, friendly intimacy that sometimes dropped on to a tender note and sometimes pranced into flirtation. Yet Catherine did not want her to leave them, she kept her arm round her as they walked, and though she did not bother to bring her into the conversation, she turned to her sometimes with a smile of such happy goodwill that it gave Bess a throb of awed envy, not for what Catherine possessed, but for what she was – so naturally good and kind and unsuspicious, as she herself could never be.

The wind was too cold for sauntering; they went indoors, and Catherine gave the Admiral a posset of mulled wine and spices to warm him after his ride, and still would not let Bess leave them. So she sat on a cushion by Catherine’s chair near the fire and played with her new greyhound puppy, and listened to their assured, easy, grown-up voices as they talked on and on, forgetting her (yes, he had even forgotten she was there), and felt unutterably miserable that she was only thirteen and a half.

They talked over Edward’s coronation last week. Thank heaven, Catherine said, that Mr Cheke had shown some sense, in spite of being a great scholar, by insisting that the service in the Abbey should be shortened so as not to exhaust the child more than was necessary: as it was, he had been sick from sheer nervousness all over his beautiful pearl-embroidered white
waistcoat, even before the procession had started; and after it was all over he had had to go straight to bed instead of sitting up for the splendid banquet Tom Seymour had given to all the Court in his grand new house at Temple Bar – and here she went into a fit of giggles.

‘I can’t help it,’ she gasped out, ‘it looked so funny, you and your brother sitting on either side of his empty throne like a couple of watchdogs and glowering at each other across it! My Lord Protector had reason to glower, certainly,’ she added with quick tact, ‘for you outshone him completely in the procession. What a shout they raised as you rode by. It was like the roar of the sea.’

Tom looked pleased. ‘Ah, he laid down plenty of wine for them in the fountains this time, but they’ll never shout “Good Old Ned!” for him as they did for “Good Old Hal!”– nor for the boy either,’ he added without even troubling to drop his voice, which made Bess certain he had forgotten her presence, for surely even he could not be so incautious as to criticise her brother in front of her?

She had stuck her two branches of lambs’ tails into a silver jug on a table and was watching the ghostly shadow of their dangling tassels that the pale sunset light had thrown on the wall. She thought of Edward being sick on his gorgeous Coronation dress – why couldn’t he have waited for a basin? Boys had no control. So they wouldn’t ever call him ‘Good Old Ned.’ Would they ever shout ‘Good Old Bess’ for her? But she didn’t like the sound of that – it would be better if it were ‘Beautiful Bess’ or ‘Our Glorious Bess.’

The city children would dress up as angels for her then, and sing, as they had done for Edward: