Young Bess (16 page)

Edward replied promptly, ‘Jumping Joan.’

His friend Barnaby, coming forward at that moment to serve him on bended knee, gave a sidelong glance of adoration at the Princess Elizabeth and wondered why she looked so cross.

After the banquet they danced, and after they had danced the formal Court dances that everybody knew, Tom said he would show them something new, and as old as the Magyars’ Covenant of Blood, and that was the Palace Dance.

His Bohemians thrummed out a rhythmic measure in which there was hardly any tune but an endless throbbing, drumming movement, as compelling as if it were the procession of a sacrificial victim; they led the way ahead of the company, Tom gave his hand to his hated sister-in-law and told her to give hers to the gentleman of her choice, and so on, each taking a partner by the hand and pacing, slowly at first, then faster and faster, following those little dark foreign men who were dancing, prancing, fiddling, twiddling ahead of them, through the hall and the great staircase, down the long passages, up the odd little flights of stairs and down others, through room after room of the rambling manor-house, ‘upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber,’ laughing and talking and glittering they went, and all the time some couples kept dropping out, getting left behind, while the rest linked up to new partners.

And so, for a few moments, Barney’s dream came true, and he danced hand-in-hand with the Princess Elizabeth.

She did not look cross now. She smiled at him with seraphic ecstasy induced by the Hungarian music and Tokay; the torches knocked bright sparks out of her hair; and to his bewildered delight she swung him out of the procession to an
alcove in one of the downstairs rooms and sat on a
window-seat
while he leant against it. Even her explanation for this, that her new shoes were too tight, made as she kicked them off, could not dim the romance of such a moment to Barney, who remained silent with awe, even about the shoes.

She said casually, ‘We are cousins, aren’t we? You are a connexion of the Butlers of Ormonde, I think, and my mother’s grandmother was one of them – I very nearly was myself.’ And then as the boy stammered with astonishment she told him how the Bullens had tried to marry Anne to the Earl of Ormonde of that day but she had flatly refused. ‘Think of it! If she had not been so staunch, I’d have been born in Kilkenny Castle, and my only glimpse of town life a visit to Dublin!’

He burst out laughing at thought of this radiant creature among the thatched roofs of that primitive city. It was easily seen how such a prospect had driven her mother, that gay Frenchified coquette, to the perilous pursuit of King Henry that ended in her death. But he naturally did not speak this thought aloud, only: ‘Kilkenny! After six years at the French Court! Your Highness’s mother could never have stood that!’

‘I wish I could see the French Court,’ sighed Bess.

‘And I,’ said the page. ‘I mean to, too.’

‘Do you, Barney? You must not mind me calling you that, for you see my brother always does when he speaks of you.’

‘Mind!’ When the flattery of her using his intimate
home-name
sent his blood tingling into his head!

She saw it with delight. So she could use her power on him too, a boy she had scarcely spoken to before. But he was only
a boy, perhaps no older than herself, though already so tall (and, yes, he was very good-looking) and shy, so she was careful not to show that she saw it, but asked him with easy friendliness why he wanted to go to the French Court. Barney in a burst of confidence told her that it was not the Court he wanted to see, but something of the French wars. ‘But I wouldn’t know how I can leave himself, not till he can shake a loose leg a bit more—’

‘Shake the Protector off his back, you mean!’

And she laughed with delicious, daring camaraderie, for well she knew she was mad to speak so of Somerset, ‘but not to you,’ she said, and he drew nearer in the proud joy of sharing an indiscretion. It was not the only one they shared, for she had put up her hand with that half appeal to him, and he had taken it in his, and she did not know how to draw it away, though she knew she ought to; she was of the blood royal, second in succession to the throne of England, and more, she was in love with the most magnificent man in the kingdom, a man three times the age and ten times the power and experience and worldly knowledge of this young page, the son of an Irish Chieftain, who came from the hills and bogs of a savage country where no Englishman went, except to lose honour and die.

‘I may never hold your hand again,’ he said. ‘I may never look at you again except from across the hall and I carrying some pompous dish that no one wants to eat, and you with some great English lord looking into your eyes the way he’d drink the honey from them as if they were the blue flowers of heaven itself. But this moment is mine, and not even God can take it from me, that I’m holding your slight hand in mine,
and your eyes are looking at me. I’ll never ask it of you again. I ask only this, to be true to you and yours from this hour on. Wherever I am across the seas, whatever I am doing there, I swear to leave it on the instant that I know I can be of service to you or yours, so help me God and His Mother.’

He bent his smooth dark head and kissed her hand, so hard that it hurt. As he looked up, Bess flung her arms round his neck and kissed him.

Behind her the window was open to the soft spring night, and she heard the faint crunch of gravel on the path. She swung round, but the steps had passed on. Frightened, she put on her shoes, caught Barney’s hand and swung him back into the procession and they danced on.

There was another break in it, and this time her hand was in her brother’s; it was hot and clammy as it pulled her aside.

‘Let’s stop a moment,’ he said, coughing. ‘Look, here’s a cool corner. Did Jane give you my message?’

‘What message?’ (‘the blue flowers of heaven itself’ – had Barney really said that about her eyes?).

‘About Mr Cheke?’

‘Oh – that!’

‘What do you mean? Did you forget to pray as I asked?’

‘Oh no,’ said Bess with glib haste, ‘I prayed – hard.’

‘It didn’t really matter.’ Edward’s voice sounded rather smug. ‘I’d done it, and God heard me. I knew He would. I told them all so, this morning when I came down to breakfast, and it’s happened just as I said it would. At midday he took a turn for the better. The doctors say now he will live.’

‘Flounder, flounder in the sea—’ sang Bess, to her brother’s astonishment. ‘Do you too think you are God?’

‘Of course I don’t,’ said Edward, hurt. ‘God heard me, that’s all. Don’t you believe in prayers?’

‘Not half as much as our sister Mary does, and yet you are dead against her.’

‘She,’ said Edward with masterly simplicity, ‘prays in the wrong way.’

‘How do you know which is the right one?’

‘The best brains in the kingdom are finding out. Listen, I’ve just heard this from the Archbishop, it’s to be the final blessing to the service of Communion – that’s what it’s to be called now, you know, instead of the old Mass. Cranmer won’t truckle to that.’

‘Well,
he
ought to know all about truckling – perhaps even how to avoid it!’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Edward sternly, but was too eager with his information to wait to reprove her. ‘He’s made everything perfectly clear in it. “The piece of God, that passeth – all understanding.” You see? Who wants to tear God’s flesh in his teeth and drink His blood? The blood and wine are only a symbol of remembrance – a piece of God that passes through men’s minds, all men understanding that it is but a symbol. Do you understand?’ he added anxiously, for women, even the cleverest, were sometimes curiously obtuse.

Bess was thinking it out. At last she said, ‘I should give more attention to spelling and less to theology if I were you. I believe it might help.’

But as she looked down at the flushed face and saw through it into the childish, precocious, literal mind that was so determined, like his father’s, to build for himself a cast-iron set of theories that should prove himself always in the right, a
sudden trembling wave of pity caught her up. Why should he not think himself in the right? He was so small and frail, he might not have very long in which to do it. Something of Barney’s protective passion for his little King had communicated itself to her, though she could not know, as did his constant companion, how much he needed it; only that, where his father’s sense of self-rightness had blazed like the sun at noonday, Edward’s was like a pale slip of moonlight, steady but cold, cold and lonely.

A great heat had gone out of the world with the passing of King Henry, stupendous rascal as he may have been. That vehement and earthy heat seemed to have burnt out all the life round it; both Edward and the Protector were shadows in comparison, conscientious, earnest, cold.

The music was dying away through the house – a long tingling sigh, and then it ceased, as if giving up the competition with the enormous buzz of voices that drummed from every corner of the manor like the humming from a monstrous hive. The noise converged from every side and surged into the hall; the guests were gathering together and taking their leave in order of precedence; the Duke of Somerset approached his royal nephew respectfully and reminded him of the speech of thanks he must make to his other uncle; the King came down into the hall with his sister, and his gentlemen-in-waiting lined up behind him. His page Barnaby Fitzpatrick came forward with his monarch’s fur-lined cloak over his arm to protect him from the night air on the river, bent to put it round the younger boy, then straightened himself, stood back tall and slim and dark behind the fair child, and his glowing eyes fastened once more on his Princess.

She thought he looked like a supple water-reed among all these stiff-coated cabbages. She gave a swift glance round; no one that she could see was looking at her; and placed the tips of her fingers to her lips.

They were all going away down the water-steps; the King had entered his royal barge, the rest were following. Catherine said, ‘I cannot stay on my feet one moment longer. I am going to bed,’ and her husband tenderly pressed her to do so.

‘I’ll see to the rest. There’s no need for you to worry. Go to bed and sleep sound. I’ll not wake you by coming in to say good-night.’

Catherine went.

Bess stayed beside Tom, still saying goodbye to all the lesser guests. He turned to her in a pause between the leave-takings and said, quick and low and furious, ‘I must speak to you, tonight. Come out on the water-steps as soon as all these poultry have clucked away. I’ll have my barge ready; we’ll go on the river.’

‘What am I to say to Mrs Ashley?’

‘Tell her to go to the devil along with the rest of these old hens. Do I need to tell you what to say?’

‘No,’ said Bess.

She ran upstairs. Cat Ashley was waiting for her, laying out her night-shift.

‘Go away,’ said Bess.

‘But—your Highness!’

‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Well, if you must stay, give me my cloak –
any
cloak, woman! What are you havering for?’

‘A cloak –
now
? A
cloak
!’

‘Stop clucking! I’m accompanying His Majesty on his barge.’

‘The royal barge left a quarter of an hour ago,’ said Mrs Ashley, slowly stiffening.

‘What the devil do I care? Give me my cloak.’

‘I dare not.’

But in a paroxysm of nervous agitation Mrs Ashley had already reached it down. Bess snatched it from her, dealt a resounding smack on her governess’s cheek which sent her staggering into a chair, and whisked out of the room.

Sitting up, a little stunned, her hand groping doubtfully, unbelievingly, to her face, Mrs Ashley heard the bedroom door being locked on her.

‘I tell you I looked in through the window as I passed, and I saw you fling your arms round a man’s neck and kiss him.’

‘I have kissed no man tonight,’ said Bess.

Well, it was true, wasn’t it? Barnaby Fitzpatrick was no man yet; he was probably no older than herself. But it was delightful that the Admiral should think she had kissed a man tonight, a real grown man; that he should mind so much that she felt a delicious qualm of terror as to what he might do next.

He could not do much, he reflected. Not with his
watermen
rowing the barge within a few yards of them, and their heads facing the canopy under which he and the girl sat on their cushions. Fortunately, the fellows could not understand English, or so he chose to believe. He slipped his arm round her under her cloak and pressed her lithe young body against his own. There was nothing tender or yielding in it, but he felt it tingling with life.

‘God’s living soul!’ he breathed in her ear. ‘If only you were not a virgin!’

In answer came a shocked gasp that turned to a desperate little laugh, and then a whisper: ‘How do you know?’

‘You devil’s strumpet! Have you given your body to any
man? Who was that fellow tonight?
Answer
me!’ he commanded, while his hand gripped her arm.

But she did not cry out. ‘Now I shall have to hide my arm from my waiting-women,’ she breathed softly.

‘Only from your women? Has no man seen them?’

‘Oh yes!’

‘Which? You witch! You bitch!’

‘Who? Tu whit, to whoo! Why you! you!’ she gave back on a mocking call that answered the big white owl as it went skimming past them over the dark waters to its nest in the old trees round Lambeth Palace.

Bess leant forward from the canopy to watch its flight. The moonlight fell on her face, a pale oval in the darkness; it glittered on her eyes. Her lips parted in a smile of ecstasy that chilled the man beside her as though he had no part in it, for it was self-contained, the bliss of suddenly awakened vanity. She had no room at the moment to think of Tom himself; she was too full of the discovery that can only come once in a lifetime, if it come at all, the discovery that she, like her mother, was the kind to drive men mad for her. Barney had been mad to speak to her as he had done tonight, the Admiral was mad to take her out in his barge, and she herself mad to box her governess’s ears and rush out to join him. ‘This is the happiest night of my life,’ she told herself, for never before had a man told her that he loved her, and tonight two men – well, a man and a boy – had done so.

The river flowed past below them, gleaming dark and pale together, the ripples lapping and hissing against the sides of the barge; rippling in secret laughter, it flowed on beside them, past them, away into the darkness of the sleeping city, a river
tireless as time itself, bearing on its shores this mighty stream of human life all unknowing of its future, even as she was of hers, with all her life rippling away before her into the undiscovered darkness.

‘London is breathing all round us,’ she said.

‘Its breath stinks, then,’ said Tom.

But he could not prick her ecstatic bubble. Of course the river smelt, but so did the ghostly shapes of white may trees flowering on its banks. The dark towers of Whitehall Palace glided past them, and she giggled in delight to think what the Protector and his wife, shut up there in the stuffy dark, would say if they knew who was outside in the barge. The jagged unfinished walls of Somerset House rose beside them; the old houses on London Bridge flung a dark pall shadow upon them as they shot one of its arches; in the distance a lighted window shone out high up among the trees.

‘There is a light in Lambeth Palace,’ said Bess on a pious note. ‘My brother says the Archbishop is working night after night at this new religion.’

‘There’s something in it,’ said the Admiral reflectively. ‘Some of these Reformers suggest making it legal to have two wives.’

‘I’d never make one of a pair!’

‘Not you! You’d be as jealous as the Sultan.’

‘Or as yourself. Some of them say a woman should have two husbands, but you don’t mention that!’

‘God’s death, who
was
that man?’

‘There
was
no man.’

‘Liar!’

Bess hugged herself with enjoyment. ‘What will you
become?’ he had once asked her, and this was what she had become: a woman with the power to tease him into a rage while she kept her head. She spoke in a cool detached voice, only spoilt by a slight breathlessness. ‘Some of them want to do away with marriage altogether. It isn’t only religion is in the melting-pot, it’s the whole of society. Nobody knows what will happen – to any of us – but then – nobody ever did.’

And her unusual philosophic speculation relapsed into a high-pitched giggle of excitement.

It exasperated him. Why the devil had he been such a fool as to bring her out? Virgins were raw as unripe fruit. She was not yet ripe enough even to be excited by a man, only by the admiration and desire that she excited. She was a pert affected chit – not a patch on her mother, and never would be. He told her so, and she longed to scream with rage but became very grown-up and distant and told him it was nothing to her that he had plainly been in love with her mother – as no doubt it had been nothing to her mother either.

He roared to the boatmen to turn about and take them home.

Bess sat stiff with fury. She told herself she cared less than a hoot of the white owl what the Admiral thought of her, or any other man. She would never care for him, or any man. What pleasure was there in seeing them get hot and excited, beyond the pleasure that she could make them do so? That was all they should ever be to her – tributes to her power.

The river flowed against them now, the ripples flopping louder against the barge as they were rowed up-stream, the rowlocks giving their steady rhythmic click in answer. The sleeping houses slid past again, but the awe she had felt of the
stream of unknown life was now tinged with both pity and envy – so many little humdrum lives sleeping all round her, people going home from work every night, maids that she had seen this morning hanging out their summer smocks to bleach in the sun, lads she had seen last week in the dawn of May Day bearing green branches from the woods to deck their homes, hovels though they might be – all these people lay sleeping helplessly round her, poor, pinched, and ugly perhaps, yet all had been intent on getting home to something or someone that made it home to them. But for whom was she going back, in Catherine’s house?

She would not think of Catherine.

The moments were slipping past them in the dark, sliding along as fast as the ripples below them. The river-bank rose beside them; tall reeds swayed in the night breeze and shadowy willows drooped towards them; wild swans lay asleep like patches of moonlight, and the white saucer shapes of hemlock starred the darkness. They passed the square stone tower of Chelsea Church, they were just coming to Chelsea Place, the moments were slipping away faster and faster, and she had wasted them all in teasing; this was the happiest night of her life and she had thrown it away, she had driven away the man who sat beside her. She tried desperately to recall him. In a sudden jerky voice she said:

‘Soon it will be strawberry-time again. Do you remember them dipped in wine on board the
Great Harry
? I was a little girl then.’

‘You are now,’ he replied sourly. ‘The more fool I for wasting time on such a flutterpate!’

It was no good. The barge had stopped. He was holding
out his hand to help her out on to the water-steps. She had let it all slide past her, instead of telling him how she loved him. Next time she would tell him.

She huddled her cloak round her and pretended to yawn. ‘And now I must let out my governess,’ she said. ‘Heigh-ho for hell let loose!’