In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean - Страница 114

“She did not tell me.”

“She would not have grieved you.”

“Perhaps it would have been better if I had known.”

There was no pretense now. I could not hide my misery from them, and they would not have believed me, however good a job I made of it.

“He gave me no sign …” I said.

“He was particularly courteous to her afterward.”

“He bore no grudge,” said Jane, as though calling my attention to something in his favor.

“Oh, Your Majesty,” said Susan, “you must not be unhappy. There are such men. They know not the meaning of fidelity. It is better not to care too much. We heard how he used to go off with a group of friends. They were of a kind.”

“I had heard rumors and not believed them.”

“They used to sing that song about the baker's daughter,” said Jane.

I closed my eyes. So they knew! All my people knew, and I was the only one who believed he loved me!

“What song?” I asked.

Susan said quickly, “It was a silly little rhyme … nothing … nothing…I have forgotten it.”

I caught Jane's wrist. “Tell me the rhyme,” I commanded.

“Your Majesty, I…I can't remember.”

“Tell me,” I said coldly.

So she told me.

The baker's daughter in her russet gown

Better than Queen Mary—without her crown.

The humiliation! The pain of rejection! My happiness had been nothing but an illusion. It was a phantom creature of my imagination to mock me now. It was created out of nothing… like the child of whom I had dreamed, for whom I had planned…a will o' the wisp…to taunt me and to leave me desolate.

I wanted to be alone with my sorrow. It overwhelmed me. I could share it with no one.

“Leave me,” I said.

“Your Majesty …” began Susan, but I only looked at her coldly and repeated, “Leave me.”

So I was alone… alone with my wretchedness, staring the truth in the face as I should have done many weary months before. I had conceived a dream, a flimsy figment of my own imagination. It had nothing to do with reality. I had duped myself; and I had been seen to be duped by those around me. There would be some who laughed at my gullibility and others who kept silent and protected me from the knowledge because they loved me.

At length I rose. I went to that chamber where his picture hung.

How I had loved it! He stood erect, as he always did to disguise his low stature. His face was handsome with his fair hair and beard and his firm Hapsburg chin. I had stood many times before this picture, glowing with pride and pleasure, while he had been romping with some low woman of the town. The baker's daughter who was better than Mary … without her crown, of course.

I found a knife and I slashed at the picture. I felt better than I had for some time. The knife pierced the canvas, and still I went on cutting.

Susan came in.

She must have heard me come here. She was terribly anxious and feared what effect the revelations had had on me.

She saw at once what I had done.

“Have it taken away,” I said.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Gently she took the knife from me and hid it in the pocket of her skirt. The next day the picture was gone, but my unhappiness remained.

I WAS ILL after that. No one was surprised. My periodic illnesses had become commonplace… too frequent for anyone to notice.

I spent long hours alone. I brooded on the past. I recalled incidents, our being together, our love-making, which had been conducted in a manner to resemble a stately pavane. There had been no joy in it, no laughter, no fun. It was a ritual which had to be borne—on his side—for the sake of an heir.

As for myself, I had not known it could be any other way. How could I, ignorant as I was of such matters? Now I wondered how it had been with the Duchess of Lorraine, the baker's daughter and all the others.

I stormed…to myself, of course. I wept. I talked to him as though he were there beside me. I told him what he had done to me. He had humiliated me, used me, slighted me, and never had he loved me.

I remembered how he had been with Elizabeth. He had said she should not be forced to marry. Did he plan to marry her when I was dead? He surely could not be thinking of annulling our marriage so that he could marry my sister? Dispensation could, of course, always be obtained for the powerful.

How empty my life was! For the happiness I craved I would have exchanged twenty crowns.

But one cannot mourn for ever. I must meet my Council. The country was unstable. The burnings were deplored in several quarters. I was blamed for them. Families all over the country were cursing my name.

I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted to explain how distressed I was. My task had been to bring England back to Rome, and that I had done, but there were sullen looks everywhere. There were murmurings against me.

Only those close to me, the people who really knew me, gave me their love—and mingled with it, I think, their pity.

I told myself that I hated Philip.

NEWS CAME FROM ITALY. Edward Courtenay had died.

I was deeply moved. He was so young. So handsome he had been. I could have been in love with him. Then Philip had come, a King, a ruler, a strong man. Poor Courtenay! What chance had he had then? I thought of all those years when the Tower had been his home; it was commendable that he had educated himself, but there was more needed than education. To have married him would have been an even greater disaster than my marriage with Philip.

Would he have loved me any more? Not he. I was too old. Love had passed me by until I was too old to understand and enjoy it. I had nothing to offer but a crown. A low-class baker's daughter was more attractive than I … if my crown were taken away.

But with it, of course, I had been a glittering prize.

I knew poor Courtenay had found it hard to live in exile. Right up to the time of his death he was pleading to return. I would have granted his request but the Council was horrified at the prospect. Often they had pointed out how dangerous such people could be. With Courtenay, his good looks made up for his lack of sense, and he was a member of that dynasty which, now it was no longer the ruling family, had been ennobled with the sanctity of that which was and now is no more. Oh yes, the Plantagenets had become holy now their age was past. Had people loved them so devotedly while they lived? Would the Tudors be as revered when they had passed away?

So Courtenay had wandered about Europe, dreaming of home and perhaps a crown. It was tragic to be born within reach of it—even when the chances of attaining it are remote—and to spend one's life in endless striving for the unattainable.

Yes, the Council had been right. It would have been folly to have allowed him to return.

So the golden boy had died in Padua. He was buried there, and all his dreams of glory with him.

PHILIP WAS WRITING to me. Such tender letters they were. He desired to return but events delayed him. However, he was coming. There was so much he wished to discuss with me. Our enforced separation had gone on too long.

How could I help it if my melancholy lifted, if I began to dream again?

The rumors had been false, I told myself. He loved me. He implied it in his letters. There had certainly been weighty matters to occupy him. Now he wanted to talk with me that we might act together, which, as husband and wife, was natural for us.

Perhaps I was not so guileless as I had been, for while a part of me wanted desperately to believe, there was another part which knew why he was so eager to express his affection.

He needed help.

Well, should not a wife help her husband? It should be her joy and privilege to do so.

The fact was that he was coming home. I should see him again. I studied myself in my mirror. There were dark circles under my eyes, and wrinkles round them. I was an old woman. But the news had brought a certain radiance to my face, and I assured myself I looked younger.