"Yes, yes. Who? Tell me, girl. By God's blood, if you do not obey me, you will be sorry. I promise you that."
"It is my Lord Essex," said Frances.
She said that the Queen stared at her as though struck dumb, and forgetting she was in the presence of her sovereign, from which only permission should release her, so great was her terror that she rose to her knees and stumbled from the room, while the Queen just stood there staring at her.
As she ran away she heard the Queen's voice, raised and deadly.
"Send for Essex. Bring him here without delay."
Frances came straight to me at Leicester House in a state of collapse. I got her to bed while she told me what had happened.
Penelope, who was at Court, came shortly after her.
"All hell has broken loose," she said. "Essex is with the Queen and they are shouting at each other. God knows what will be the outcome. People are saying that before the day is out Essex will be in the Tower."
We waited for the storm to burst. I remembered so vividly the time when Simier had told the Queen that Leicester was married. She had wanted to send him to the Tower and had only been restrained from doing so by the Earl of Sussex. But she had relented. I did not know how deep her affection went for my son, but I did know that it was of a different nature from that which she had borne my husband. That had gone deep, entwined with the roots of her girlhood. I believed that which she bore my son was a more frail plant and I trembled for him. He would lack the tact of Leicester. He would show bravado where Leicester would have brought out his considerable diplomacy.
I waited at Leicester House with Penelope and Frances. In due course Essex came to us.
"Well," he said, "she is furious with me. She calls me ungrateful, reminding me that she brought me up and can as easily cast me down."
"A favorite theme," I commented. "Leicester heard it again and again throughout his life. She did not suggest sending you to the Tower?"
"I think she is on the point of doing so. I told her that much as I revered her, I was a man who would live his own life and marry where he chose. She said she hated deceit and when her subjects kept secrets from her it was because they knew they had something to hide, to which I replied that, knowing her uncertain temper, I had had no wish to arouse it."
"Robin!" I cried aghast. "You never did!"
"Something of the nature," he said carelessly. "And I demanded to know why she was so against my marriage, at which she replied that if I had come to her in a seemly manner and told her what I wished, she would have given the matter her consideration."
"And refused you permission!" I cried.
"And that would have meant that I should then have been obliged to disobey you instead of merely displeasing you."
"One day," I told him, "you will go too far."
I was to remember those words later, and even then they sounded like a tocsin ringing in advance to warn me of danger.
"Well," he went on, swaggering a little before us, "she told me that it was not only the secrecy which angered her but that I, for whom she had had grand plans, should have married beneath my station."
I turned to Frances, understanding her feelings. Had it not happened once to me? I wanted to comfort her and I said reassuringly: "She would have said that of anyone unless she were royal. I remember how she was ready—or said she was—to consider a princess for Leicester."
"It was an excuse to hide her fury," said Essex complacently. "She would have been mad with rage whomsoever I had married."
"The point is," said Penelope, "what happens now?"
"I'm in disgrace. Cast out of Court. 'You will want to dance attendance on your wife,' she said, 'so we shall not be seeing you at Court for some time.' I bowed and left her. She is in a vile mood. I do not envy those who serve her at close quarters."
I wondered how much he cared. He did not appear to in the least at that moment, which was comforting for Frances.
"Think how much he loves you," I pointed out to her, "to incur the Queen's displeasure for your sake." Those words were like an echo coming down through the years—a repetition of the dance—with Essex the Queen's partner now, instead of Leicester. There was the usual buzz of speculation at Court. Essex is out.
What excitement for the others—men like Raleigh, who had always been at odds with him, and the old favorites. Hatton perked up considerably. Poor Hatton, he was showing his years, which was particularly noticeable in a man who had been so active and at one time the best dancer at Court. He still indulged and even took the floor with the Queen, as graceful as ever. Essex had outshone them all; and it was the younger ones like Raleigh and Charles Blount who stood to gain from his disgrace.
Poor Hatton did not benefit long from the decline of Essex. He became more and more weak during the days that followed and before long retired to his house in Ely Place, where he suffered acutely from an internal disease and died by the end of that year.
The Queen was melancholy. She hated death, and no one was allowed to mention it in her hearing. It must have been sad for her to see her old friends dropping from the tree of life like so many overripe plums, riddled by insects and disease.
It made her turn more and more to the young.
When Frances gave birth to a son we called him Robert after his father. The Queen relented. Essex might come back to Court, but she did not wish to see his wife.
So the Queen and my son were good friends again. She kept him by her side; she danced with him; they laughed together and he delighted her with his frank conversation. They played cards until early morning, and it was said that she was restless when he was not beside her.
Oh yes, it was like the old pattern with Leicester but, alas, where Leicester had learned his lessons, Essex never would.
I had at last accepted that fact that the Queen would never forgive me for having married Leicester and that I should always be an outside observer of the events which were shaping our country. That was hard for a woman of my nature to accept; but I was not one to sit down and mope. I suppose like my son and daughter I would fight to the end. I always felt, though, that if only I could have once met the Queen and talked to her, we could have repressed our resentment and I could have amused her in the way I had so long ago; then we could have come to some understanding. I was no longer Lettice Dudley but Lettice Blount. True I had a young husband who adored me, and that might displease her. She would think I ought to be punished for what I had done. I wondered if she had heard rumors about my having helped Leicester out of this world. Surely not. She would never have let that rest.
But I did not give up hope. Essex told me that on those occasions when he broached the matter of my reinstatement at Court her looks grew stormy, she became formidable and refused to discuss it with him, turning from him and not speaking to him for the rest of the evening. She had intimated that this was one subject which even he must not mention.
"I'll have to go warily with her," he said. "But I'll do it in time."
I guessed that she had been even fiercer than he implied, since she had made him realize that his insistence could bring about his banishment from Court. But I knew my Robert. He would not let the matter rest. It was, however, a question of her will against his.
So there I was—no longer young but still attractive. I had my home in which I took a pride. My table was one of the best in the country. I was determined to rival those of the royal palaces and I hoped the Queen would hear of it. I would myself supervise the making of salads from the products of my own gardens; my wines were muscatel and malmsey and those from Greece and Italy, which were often laced with my own special spices. The kissing comfits served at my table were the daintiest and sweetest to be found. I occupied myself with the making of lotions and creams specially suited to my needs. They enhanced my beauty so that there were times when it seemed it glowed more brightly as I grew older. My clothes were noted for their elegance and style; they were of silk, damask, brocade, sarcenet and the incomparable beauty of my favorite velvet. They came in the most delightful colors, for with every year the dyers grew more expert in their trade. Peacock blue and popinjay green; maidenhair brown and gentian blue; poppy red and marigold yellow. ... I reveled in them all. My seamstresses worked constantly to beautify me and the result I must say—despising false modesty—was good.