Young Bess (24 page)

‘Mr Parry!’ said Mrs Ashley, and there was agony in her voice. She had forgotten all about her consonants. It did not matter how she spoke, as long as she said what she must say. ‘Mr Parry, I spoke unwisely just now. I wish I had not said all that I said to you of her Grace the Lady Elizabeth and the late Queen and the Lord Admiral.’

‘You can depend on me,’ said Mr Parry. ‘Not another soul shall ever hear of it, not if they were to drag me in pieces by wild horses. No,’ said he, sitting up and looking straight before him with solemn unctuous eyes at the winking silver candlesticks, and then all round him on the small room filled to the ceiling with bright firelight, ‘not if I were dragged in pieces – by wild horses.’

His mother and little Jane Grey were in the house when they came to arrest the Admiral.

Old Lady Seymour did not twitter and flutter, nor even cry. She stood like a small statue of grey stone; her lips moved a little but no one heard what she said, except Jane, who thought she was praying and crept to her side to join her. But the words she heard, over and over again, were: ‘I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. One of them would kill the other.’

The frightened tears began to run in silence down Jane’s face.

But the Admiral was as gay and unworried as if it had been a summons to Court.

‘You’ll see me back again in no time, never fear,’ he told them. ‘They’ll never dare do anything really against me. And if they did, Ned wouldn’t let ’em.’

But even as he said it, an uncomfortable echo sounded in his mind from Ned’s last solemn warning and lecture, uttered after Father Russell’s had so signally failed. ‘I may not be able to save you,’ he had said. ‘Only yourself can do that now for certain.’ And he had begged him – yes, his urgency had really amounted to that – begged him to go on a mission to Boulogne to see to the defences there – to get him out of
England, that was patent; but for the first time Tom wondered if Ned hadn’t after all been sincere when he pressed it on Tom’s account rather than his own.

He had so nearly gone to Boulogne. He had even begun to pack for it. And then – Mr Parry had come up from Hatfield. He had brought a letter from Elizabeth; nothing much, as usual, to be got from that. But he could tell the Admiral a deal about her, and his plump smiles and sympathetic glances had told still more.

The Princess changed colour very noticeably if the Admiral were but mentioned; and if anything praising or admiring were said, ‘she drinks it in as a flower does the rain, lifting her head to it, and you can see the little pulse in her throat throbbing with pride.’ He had then remarked discreetly on the arrangements for a town house for her so as to visit the Court and her brother this winter.

‘That won’t be till after I’ve gone to Boulogne – they’ll see to that!’ said the Admiral bitterly.

And after Mr Parry had left he had sat trying to think out his plans, but he could only think of the pulse throbbing in that childishly bony little hollow at the base of her long throat – a pulse that throbbed even at hearing him mentioned. He thought how he could make it beat; how he could make every inch of her body tingle with longing for him, as it had never yet known that it could do.

His steward had come in with a pile of papers for him to sign, giving powers to various persons to act for him at home while he was in Boulogne.

‘Take them away,’ said the Admiral. ‘I’m not going.’

And so now he was not in Boulogne, he was in his own
house of Seymour Place in the Strand, and they had come to arrest him. A stupid business, he’d never forgive Ned for frightening his mother like this. Ned had got frightened himself, that was why he’d done it; he was as nervous as a cat, and cowards were always cruel.

‘They can’t do anything,’ he told his mother. ‘They’ve got nothing really against me. You’ll see me back sooner than if I’d gone to Boulogne. Give me your blessing, little Mam.’

As he knelt to receive it, the sense of that hurried muttering whisper struck chill on his heart.

‘I knew it. I knew it. One of them would kill the other.’

He sprang up and flung his arms round her, swept her up from the ground and tried to kiss warmth into that cold old face.

The Captain of the Guard reminded him that they must go. He went, not looking back. A small figure came pattering after him.

‘My lord, my lord,’ cried Jane’s voice. ‘Say goodbye to me too!’

He stooped and kissed her, and she clung to him. ‘You are going to the Tower!’ she said, and shuddered.

‘What of that? You’ll go to the Tower too one day.’ And he whispered, smiling at her, ‘The night before your Coronation, when you marry the King.’

‘That is different,’ sobbed Jane. ‘I shan’t go by the Traitors’ Gate.’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ he chaffed her. But she would not be coaxed into a smile.

‘You have been a true father to me,’ she said, ‘better than my own.’

‘That’s easy!’ He added hastily, ‘To such a daughter. Come, you must stop crying or your eyelashes will fall out. Look after my mother and make her laugh.’

And then he went.

Sir Robert Tyrwhitt dismounted at Hatfield House at the head of a considerable body of servants, and demanded to see the Princess Elizabeth. He was told that she was at lessons and could never be disturbed till they were finished. Sir Robert, tugging at his short scrubby greying beard, showed an order signed by the Council.

He was promptly ushered into the study, where Bess sat opposite Mr Ascham and a maid-in-waiting yawned over her embroidery-frame in the corner. Usually this was Mrs Ashley’s occupation, but she had had to go up to town in answer to another summons from the Duchess, and departed with many wry anticipations of another wigging, slightly mollified by the company of Mr Parry, who was making one of his rather mysterious visits to the Admiral. So a young girl sat in Ashley’s place and pretended great interest in the lesson, until she found she could not catch Mr Ascham’s eye.

Mr Ascham shut his books slowly, looking across the table at his Princess. He saw terror leap at the back of her clear eyes, and then they seemed to cloud over, deliberately, as though she were pulling a veil across her face while she summoned all her forces of courage and deception beneath it.

The thought flashed through his mind: ‘Is this perhaps the last time I shall see her?’

Then he had to go, and she was left alone, facing the little man who had always disliked her and had now suddenly become a powerful enemy. What could have happened to place him in this position?

‘The Lord High Admiral,’ said Sir Robert slowly, and then waited a moment, watching her intently, as a cat watches the mouse just beyond its paws. She knew it, and though a sick cold wave crept up over her flesh, turning everything dark round her, she did not stir a hair’s-breadth, and her eyes faced his, still veiled and inscrutable.

‘The Lord High Admiral,’ he repeated, ‘has just been arrested by order of the Council and taken to the Tower.’ She still did not move, nor did her eyes flicker.

It was unwomanly, inhuman. He had banked everything on this first shock. But he had others in store.

‘Mrs Ashley and Mr Parry,’ he began, and again paused before finishing his sentence, ‘are also under arrest.’

Still she stared, and her eyes looked more blank than before. Then suddenly they flashed open in a green flame, she leapt forward, her hand swung up and out, and she would have struck Sir Robert full in the face if he had not stepped back so abruptly that his heel slipped on the marble tiles and he sat down on them suddenly and painfully.

A gleam of delight shot through the Princess’s eyes as she looked down on him, her clenched fist still raised so that he fancied she was going to hit him as he sat on the floor; but she thought better of it, put her hand resolutely behind her back, and shouted in a voice that surprisingly resembled her
father’s, ‘God’s death, how dare you arrest
my
governess and steward?’

Sir Roger got up, carefully refraining from feeling himself behind. His face was crimson, his eyes glazed with fury. He said, ‘Mr Parry, the pandar, and your bawd are in the Tower by now, giving a full account of Your Highness’s relations with the Admiral, and how you plotted to marry him against the will of the Council.’

She laughed, at first wildly, on an unmistakable note of hysteria. Tyrwhitt heard it, hopefully, but she heard it too and controlled it, though now shaking all over, and went on laughing – but deliberately, scornfully.

‘Take care,’ she said. ‘You are not very wise. I am second to the throne.’

‘Ha, you’ve thought of that, have you?’

‘I am neither an idiot nor a child.’

‘Married to the Admiral, you thought you would be able to take the throne for yourself.’

‘By God,’ she cried, ‘you go too far.’

‘Not as far as I may yet go. It is said that Your Grace is with child by the Admiral.’

She was silent, staring at him; then, ‘You will answer for this with your head,’ she said softly.

‘Ah! Already you think you have Sovereign power. I advise Your Grace to remember your honour, and the danger you are in, for—’ he paused again, and then said with ominous weight. ‘You are but a subject – as was Your Grace’s mother.’

All colour seemed to drain from her eyes; the pupils narrowed to pin-points like those of a cat – or a lion about to spring. At last she spoke wildly, in terror as well as rage.

‘I appeal to the King my brother. I appeal to the Protector. I will go to them and answer any charges made against me. I will not stay here to be abused so traitorously.’

She made for the door, but he stood against it. ‘I have to inform Your Grace that the Protector’s orders are that you remain here under strict watch.’

‘Am I a prisoner?’ Her voice faltered at that.

‘Virtually. Your Grace will not be put to the indignity of being under lock and key – unless it becomes necessary.’

He bowed low, went out and shut but did not lock the door, then waited. She did not rush out. He ducked down, looked through the wide keyhole, and had the satisfaction of seeing that unwomanly inhuman girl fling herself on the floor in a passion of frantic weeping.

But that moment of pleasure died in him as he walked thoughtfully away to write his report to the Protector. He would have to admit that he had got absolutely nothing out of the Princess. Shock tactics had proved useless. It looked as though he would have to change them.

‘She has a very good wit,’ he wrote, ‘and nothing can be gotten from her except by great policy.’

He would have to try it.

He did. Next day he sent a respectful message asking the Princess to grant him another interview, which of course she had no power to refuse; and then apologised, frankly and humorously, for having lost his temper in such an unwarrantable fashion – it was all because he had sat down so hard and she had looked so pleased, he said, smiling ruefully as he tenderly felt the part affected.

Then he began to coax and excuse her. She had not always
behaved as properly as a young lady should – come, she must admit that, for everybody knew that she had been sent away from Queen Catherine’s household because of her conduct with the Lord Admiral.

‘If Queen Catherine were here
she
would answer for me,’ Bess interpolated on a strangled sob, and then the forlornness of her position broke her down. She had no heart now to defy Sir Robert. He had told her she was but a subject – as her mother had been; had hinted that as her mother had died, so might she. Was it true that he had only spoken so in a rage? Certainly he seemed gentler now, and he grew still gentler when she cried.

So she cried a good deal.

He was then very fatherly; he patted her head and seemed even to like doing so, for he went on stroking her hair while she gritted her teeth to keep herself from shaking off his hand; he told her she was not to worry too much. ‘You are very young,’ he kept saying, and it was not really her fault as much as that of her elders who ought to have looked after her better; if only she ‘would open all things to him, all the evil and shame will be ascribed to them, and your youth taken into consideration by His Majesty, the Protector and the whole Council.’

But she would only open her mouth to cry – and her eyes, after rubbing them, just in time to catch Sir Robert’s eager glance at her as she seemed about to speak.

‘Come, come,’ he said as she hesitated, ‘what’s the odds? Your servants have told everything, so it cannot matter what you say.’

Then why should he want her to say it?

She said a great deal, but nothing that Tyrwhitt wanted.

Again he had to write to the Protector: ‘In no way will she confess any practice by Mrs Ashley or the cofferer Parry concerning my Lord Admiral.’

It was infuriating: what sort of a fool would his master think him that he could not force the girl to speak? He dug the pen into the ink so angrily that it splashed on to the paper, and added:

‘Yet I do see it in her face that she is guilty, and yet I do perceive that she will abide more storms ere she will accuse Mrs Ashley.’

He tried more storms. He tried gentle persuasion and complacently assured the Protector that he was ‘beginning to grow with her in credit’ – but unfortunately he could give no tangible proofs of it.

He tried a formal commission to put her under
cross-examination
and take down her evidence.

He tried a false letter from the Protector to himself which they agreed that he should show her as if at some danger to himself, ‘with a great protestation that I would not for
£
1,000 to be known of it’; this confidence trick, to make her confide in him in return, produced much polite gratitude for his trust in her, but ‘notwithstanding, I cannot frame her to all points.’

He tried a false friend, the Lady Browne,
née
Fitzgerald, who had been Surrey’s Fair Geraldine, and Surrey had written poems to her – but then so he had to the Duchess. His taste in women had not been as good as in dress; so Bess decided after the Fair Geraldine had coaxed and condoled with her, and said a thousand sympathetic, teasing, complimentary things which nevertheless left Bess with only one consideration –
what was it exactly that she had said to Lady Browne?

She had seen no one of her own household since Tyrwhitt’s arrival, but only him and his accomplices, his wife and her servants. Lady Tyrwhitt’s affection for Catherine made her take a very hard view of the bright young girl who had disturbed Catherine’s married happiness. Bess was not bright now, but neither was she humbled, nor conciliatory, nor frank. She regarded Lady Tyrwhitt with more undisguised hostility than she had dared show any of the others; her tone to her, prisoner though she was, speaking to her gaoler’s wife, flicked a whiplash of contempt. Yet she was well aware how desperate was her position.

Parry had rushed to his wife when he heard he was to go to London and be questioned; had torn off his chain of office, wrung his hands and thrown away his rings, sobbed out that he wished he had never been born for now he was utterly undone; and several servants had witnessed his panic.

They told this to the Princess, who spat. Certainly she needed a new governess, said Lady Tyrwhitt. But Bess knew the stakes were for more than that. In this struggle, which might be for her life, and, as she was beginning to understand, was most certainly for the life of the man she loved, she had no one whose advice she could ask; no one to whom she dared speak without guarding her every word, her every look; no one near her who was not her enemy, watching, listening, waiting to trap her unawares.

The hard frost that was imprisoning earth and air outside her windows, so that sometimes as she stood staring out through them she saw a starved bird fall to the ground like a stone falling, was shutting down on her spirit. Did they mean
to freeze her too to death, with terror?

She turned with a shudder from the window and crouched down by the fire, holding out her long hands to the warmth which glowed through them, showing the pink flesh translucent and the shadowy thin bones encased in it. So easy would it be to become a skeleton; already you could see its narrow framework. Instinctively her hands went up and round her slender throat: ‘I have a little neck,’ her mother had said, ‘It will not be hard work for the executioner.’

There she sat with her fingers round her throat, staring into the fire. There was a fox in the fire, a flaming red fox in a black cave, peering out at her with winking glowing eyes, the wicked eyes of a fox caught in a trap, but they were the eyes of a fellow-conspirator, perhaps of herself, and they bade her beware.

Lady Browne came flurrying in and knelt down beside her and flung her warm arms round her. ‘My child,’ said that soft imploring Irish voice. ‘My darling child, I’ve run here to warn you. Sir Robert is on his way to you – he has the statements, signed statements made by your servants in the Tower – they have confessed everything.’

‘
What
have they confessed?’

Lady Browne, already in tears, became rather incoherent, but kept on urging, ‘No time to lose – he’s on his way here. Think what you’d better say and tell me quickly, then I’ll tell you if it’s safe to say to him.’

Bess was crying with fright. Her voice could just be heard in a thin squeak.

‘Have they confessed? What have they confessed?’

‘Everything. I’ve told you, everything. Their statements are
here, signed by them. It was Parry did it first.’

‘Parry! The traitor!’

‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Lady Browne eagerly.

‘The liar!’

‘Oh,’ said Lady Browne more dubiously. She waited, but nothing more came from the girl, and she ran back to Sir Robert and told him what the Princess had said. Sir Robert noticed rather what she had not said. But he hoped more from the signed statements.

They were thrust into her hands, while he and two or three other gentlemen hovered round her, hunched uneasy shadows hanging over her, at which she dared not look. She choked back her tears.

She looked down on the papers and at all the black marks of the writing that wriggled and squirmed over them like small black snakes. They would not keep still. She could not read what they said if they would not keep still. She heard a voice that sounded a long way off: ‘Look! She is going to faint!’

If she did that, it would be a sign of guilt. If she did that, she might say something incriminating while she was unconscious. She dragged her senses back under control, focused her eyes until the snakes became still. But that was worse, for now scattered words and sentences swam up from the paper and struck at her eyes so that she reeled under first one blow and then another.

Humiliating things they were, all written down for everyone to see, and looking so much worse in words. She turned her head to avoid seeing them, but she
must
see them, everybody here knew what they were, and was watching to
see how she would take them. Those morning romps when Tom would swing into her room and if she were up, ‘strike her upon the back or buttocks familiarly and so go forth’ (how low it sounded, but nothing in it – they must see there was nothing), ‘and sometimes go through to the maids and play with them and so go forth.’ (Well, that proved there was nothing.) But here was something about her being in bed, and how ‘he would open the curtains and bid her good-morrow and make as though he would come at her, and she would go further in the bed so that he could not come at her’ – and more about his chasing her and her running to her maids and getting them to hide her. It all looked so shocking written down in solemn words, read by these shocked solemn elderly faces all round her – a herd of old bearded goats, she longed to call them. She
could
not read further with all their
walleyes
on her. She must gain time somehow, hold up some sort of mask.