Part 5 (1/2)
”Then you will give this pet.i.tion to the queen for me?” He held out a sealed letter.
”You may have my black taffeta bodice and the yellow sarcenet skirt trimmed in black,” Anne offered, her hands clasped in hope. ”They are still in fas.h.i.+on.”
”Why not pet.i.tion the queen yourself?” I asked her.
”One does not ask a favor for oneself!” she said. ”No, it must be a friend who pleads for us.”
Would I ever understand the ways of the court? I considered Anne's request. I was flattered that she called me her friend. She was a sweet lady and Graham, well intentioned. Though I pitied their circ.u.mstance, still I hesitated. Then Graham set his purse on the table, and I heard the clink of coins.
”I do not want the last of your fortune,” I said, pus.h.i.+ng it away. ”I will help you.”
Graham seized my hand and kissed it. ”Do this, and I will perform any deed for you. Next to my lady, you I will serve.” His words tumbled out. ”Sir Walter and I have been companions, and if you-if he-only ask and I will- The debt is all mine.”
I frowned and withdrew my hand. Was it impossible to keep a secret at court?
”I don't know what you mean. Sir Walter is nothing to me, or I to him,” I said, trying to sound cool, though my cheeks were hot.
Anne gave me the promised gown. It was more beautiful than any of my clothes and after a few alterations fit me perfectly. She became like a sister to me, holding my hand and whispering in my ear such things as, ”Your hair is so pretty.” ”Her Majesty is ill-tempered today; wait until tomorrow.” ”Shall I teach you a ditty?”
One night as we lay in our beds, Emme asked, ”Why do you let Lady Anne fawn over you?”
”You advised me to make new friends,” I replied, and explained how I had agreed to help her and Graham.
”You have a true friend in me. Why do you need a false one as well?” she asked, turning away.
I had no reply to Emme's question. Seldom did she misjudge anyone, and I began to worry something would go amiss with my suit. I carried the pet.i.tion everywhere, not wanting to miss an opportunity to give it to the queen. One evening she called for a warm posset, and I carried it to her bedchamber, my hands shaking so, I was afraid of spilling it. She sat in a chair wearing a velvet-trimmed nightgown, her feet in pantofles. She nodded for me to sit on a stool nearby while she drank.
”I am pleased to see Your Majesty is content,” I said, testing her mood. She had not lately reviled her cousin, Queen Mary, so I hoped that crisis had pa.s.sed.
”I am content,” she said. ”Were I a cat, I would purr.” She smiled, showing the radiance that made us all love her. In the candlelight I could barely see the wrinkles bestriding her nose and forehead.
I smiled in return. ”I am also content, merely to be in your company.”
”I don't know why I should be happy.” Elizabeth looked into her cup and swirled the contents as if they would reveal something. ”I am no longer young like you. My kingdom has no heir but many enemies.”
”More numerous still are your loyal subjects who long to serve you,” I said, looking directly at her, my heart speeding up.
The queen regarded me for a moment. ”You are direct and well spoken, not coy or fearful like most women. I would have you in my government. How is it that a woman can be a queen but not a councilor or an amba.s.sador?”
I swelled with pride at the compliment. I imagined myself a diplomat in the New World, wearing a fur-lined cloak and discoursing with Manteo, perhaps even in his native language.
”To be such a councilor is a dream that only Your Majesty could fulfill,” I said.
After a moment she said, ”You have not asked me for anything since you came here. In that regard you are also unusual. But do not forget I am both mother and father to you now, as well as your sovereign.” Her tone was tender and inviting.
I wanted to sit at her feet and share my dreams of being as free as a man to travel to new worlds and seek my fortune and happiness in love. But the pet.i.tion was in my pocket and I wanted to be rid of it.
So I said, choosing my words with care, ”I will ask something, not for myself, but on behalf of another. There is a worthy man who is in need of your grace.”
I produced the letter and knelt, placing it on the queen's lap. I kept my head down, thinking I had spoken well.
She undid the seal and read the pet.i.tion, then flung it aside.
”Thomas Graham-a worthy man? I'll let the rascal guard the villains in Fleet prison, but never my sovereign person.” She sprang to her feet and stood over me. ”Why would you, Catherine, take up the cause of this strutting turkey-c.o.c.k?”
I fell back on my heels, too stunned to reply.
”It shows a defect in your judgment,” said Elizabeth coldly.
”I am not perfect. Nor is Thomas Graham,” I croaked, feeling the tears coming. ”But he and Lady Anne are deeply in love!”
As soon as those words left my mouth I realized my error, one that would cost my new friends-and me-dearly.
The queen's frown deepened into a thundercloud. ”None of my ladies may love without my consent! I decide if if you will marry, and you will marry, and whom whom.” She stamped her foot for emphasis. ”Do not forget!”
I left the queen's chamber in tears and sought out Emme. Finding her at her prayers, I poured out the whole story. She looked at me aghast as her prayerbook slid to the floor.
”How was I to know she hated Graham so much?” I wailed. ”Surely Anne could have warned me.”
Emme took me by the shoulders. ”Don't you see? The matter has little to do with Graham. Elizabeth was speaking to you as an intimate-do you know how most of us would die for such words from her?-and you replied by thrusting a pet.i.tion at her.” Emme shook me. ”She wanted to give you you something, and you abused her generosity.” something, and you abused her generosity.”
”But I thought it was virtuous of me not not to be self-seeking!” Despair washed over me. ”Oh, Emme, I should have listened to you and refused Anne. Now I have lost the queen's regard.” to be self-seeking!” Despair washed over me. ”Oh, Emme, I should have listened to you and refused Anne. Now I have lost the queen's regard.”
She tried to comfort me. ”You are still a babe in the ways of this court. If you are lucky, perhaps she will overlook the whole business.”
But the queen was not inclined to forgive or forget. She dismissed Graham from court, sending him back to Kent, and gave Anne a tongue-las.h.i.+ng that left her red-faced and tearful for days. Anne, in turn, accused me of betraying them and ruining her happiness, but Emme defended me.
”You should be glad she did not banish you,” she scolded Anne. ”She could have put you and Thomas both in the Tower.”
”At least we would be together!” she wailed. ”But now I shall never marry, and you, Catherine,” she threatened, ”will live to regret the harm you have done us.”
”I already regret it,” I said mournfully. ”But since I intended no hurt, won't you forgive me?”
She would not, and she let everyone know that I could not be trusted. The other ladies shunned us both, fearing that our misfortune, like a disease, would infect them. They sent their own lovers away, and a virginal hush settled over the court, defying the turmoil beneath its surface.
Loyal Emme remained my friend. Anne found an ally in Frances, who also disliked me for some reason I could never discern. I waited on the queen with a humility so abject it pained me. If she noticed, she gave no sign. I lived in fear that one day her temper would flare up again and that I, like Graham, would be dismissed and disgraced. For I knew that Fortune's wheel never stops turning.
Elizabeth's court, which seemed a golden, glorious place when I arrived, was now like a forged coin-not worth a penny. I even thought about leaving. But where could I go and how would I survive?
Chapter 10.
Shared Ambitions Disconsolate, lacking friends and out of favor, I did what I could to alleviate my misery. That is, I dreamed of escape; I fantasized about love. I imagined walking with Sir Walter in Finsbury Fields or meeting him at a playhouse and weeping into his shoulder at the end of a tragedy. I pored over his letters and poems until I had memorized every line. But it only made me sadder that he no longer wrote to me. So I tied the pages up again in the embroidered handkerchief and hid the bundle in my chest. For solace I read the romances that pa.s.sed among the queen's ladies, tales of shepherds in love with princesses and knights seeking their damsels. For a time they took me to another world.
But one night I found something far better, cast aside in the queen's bedchamber: a ma.n.u.script of the first voyage to the island of the Roanoke. I read it at once, devouring Arthur Barlowe's descriptions of the land so bounteous it was like paradise. I read about the innocent friendliness of the Indians and the chief's wife in her fur-lined cloak, with pearls hanging from her ears. How I wanted to meet her, to visit her bark house, to smell the air fragrant with unusual flowers and trees!
While reading I made an additional discovery. With the ma.n.u.script was a letter from Sir Walter. I held it to my nose but could smell no trace of his civet. I read the letter and found it contained verses exalting my mistress's virtue and recommending Barlowe's report. And an idea came to me, a plan whereby I might regain the queen's favor.