“Well, then—” Katherine laughed tremulously. “Maybe—in a day or so—”
“Here?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Aye—privately and quickly.”
“Fie! Is there such need of haste? ” Elizabeth giggled impudently.
“There is!” Seymour told her. “But not for the reason you conjure up, you bawdy minx. … I love her, and have loved her, and will have her—now!”
Elizabeth watched them; Thomas Seymour bending his head above the woman whom he had drawn into his arms, her face turned and lifted to his, radiant, laughing, trying to look shocked, but too happy to look anything but a glowing flower lifting a cup to the sun.
“And leave me out in the cold, while you two warm your-
selves in the heat of your great love?” Elizabeth inquired boldly with a grin and a toss of her red head much as a spoiled, impertinent child who knows itself forgiven anything it may say.
Katherine released herself, went to the girl, put an arm about her.
“Bess dear! You will sit by the fire yourself.”
“Aye, that you will,” Thomas Seymour approved. “If there’s not some to spare you, my chick, there’s no heat in it.” The glint of malice lit Elizabeth’s eyes again.
“Have you informed the Council?”
“We have not,” Seymour answered roundly.
“Not even your brother?” Elizabeth persisted.
“Christ’s blood, no!” Seymour swore fiercely.
“Then God protect you!” said Elizabeth.
“He will,” Katherine’s sweet voice said with confidence. Seymour roared suddenly:
“He need not!”
“Tom—” Katherine gasped. And even the taunting, teasing girl flinched and stared at him. Seymour paced the length of the room, swinging his closed fists.
“Will you women cease clamoring to God for us? God’s here, I tell you. And all your little men and prudes and gossips are not. This is God’s paradise … and if it should not be so—why then, we’ll keep it yet—for ours! ”
He stood there, wearing bravado and joy as shining armor, hurling his challenge at heaven and at earth. And the Queen caught her breath on a laugh that was adoration. And Elizabeth suddenly clapped her hands.
‘Tin happy! Oh, I’m happy!”
rhcy all three went from the room on a surge of laughter, Tom with an arm about each. The room was left to stillness and wintry sunlight and the whisper of the fire as the logs fell softly to silvering ash. No other whispers. No voice to utter the nebulous, half-glimpsed thoughts of three persons who had just passed through the door. Behind Tom Seymour’s handsome face lived a man’s roistering pride, and ambition that went beyond reason. Behind Kate Parr’s smooth forehead there was only her single-hearted passion for Tom, and her motherly concern for this young Elizabeth beside her. Elizabeth herself knew only her great joy in being united with these two she loved, in the first real freedom she had ever known. She was scarcely aware of the first stirrings of womanhood within her. Over all, binding all three together in one silken noose, was their love for one another.
It seemed that Thomas’ picture of a walled paradise came to life, that spring. The rose-red roofs and the green gardens at Chelsea were an Eden.
A secret ceremony of marriage took place between himself and the Queen; but for diplomacy’s sake, Seymour continued to besiege the Council for permission for a marriage which had already taken place. He also solemnly approached the little King, his nephew, and he and Katherine and Elizabeth could laugh till their eyes watered, over Edward’s benevolent letter which conveyed to Katherine that such a marriage was, indeed, his own idea, and that by consenting to it she was showing herself a good, obedient subject.
“We thank you heartily, not only for the gentle accepta-
tion of our suit moved unto you, but also for the loving accomplishing of the same, wherein you have declared a desire to gratify us … he, being mine uncle, is of so good a nature that he will not be troublesome any means unto you. …”
No wonder they laughed!
So, spring stole through the gardens at Chelsea. And Elizabeth watched the idyll of the marriage unfolding under her eager, curious eyes with the stir and trouble of spring like music lilting through it. She would wake in the gray hours of earliest morning to sudden consciousness, and slip from between the smothering bed curtains, and set open the window, and lean out. She sensed that a tall figure was tethering a horse at the far gate into the fields and marshes, and striding up the gardens, a towering shadow, springing up the stairs to Kate’s chamber. His wife’s chamber, but Tom Seymour, riding from his town house, came as a secret lover would come. Elizabeth shut the window and scampered back to bed. And before her wakeful eyes was the picture of Tom drawing aside the curtains of another bed, to find Kate’s open arms, and there would be murmured sounds and soft laughter quenched by his lips…
It was happy, in Eden. Very happy. Kate more loving, more tender, more indulgent, than ever. Tom, her magnificent playfellow, sparring with her in violent argument broken by shouts of laughter, teasing her, romping with her like a great bear, and Kate, sweet soul, scolding him but entering into the boisterous horseplay in her own softer fashion. They kept their loving word to Elizabeth and she basked in the warmth of the hearthstone where sunlight and firelight mingled.
Katherine was a woman deeply in love for the first time, in a life that had been one long procession of dutiful marriages. She bloomed and grew young again in the miracle of this newfound daily delight. Nothing must do but all this warmth must reach out, and gather her dear Bess up in it. For here, too, was all the motherly passion Katherine had ever felt, allowed at last full free rein.
Elizabeth, too, blossomed under the care and love of these two people, with whom she was happier than she had ever been in her life. This headstrong girl with the unbridled tongue, the brilliant intellect, the clever tomboy, grew and softened here at Chelsea. At Chelsea, all inside was peace and happiness, like a blessed shore reached after a stormy passage at sea.
But outside the rose-red walls of paradise matters were anything but peaceful for the Lord High Admiral, Thomas Seymour. “My Lord Protector was much displeased” the young King noted in his journal, when the news of Thomas’ marriage reached him. Coming so hot-foot on the old King’s death, the Protector reminded the Council, it might be a serious problem if the Queen Dowager should presently bear a child. That problematic infant could be claimed as of the late King’s begetting … and then, my Lords, what happens to the succession? …
The Lord Protector was much displeased on many counts besides Tom’s unsuitable marriage. Tom, he admitted to himself, was a thorn in his side and had always been so — a full hedgerow of thorns… Tom was a popular figure with the masses, though it was the Duke of Somerset who labored heavily and sincerely for the good of the poor. He had wrestled against the enclosures of common lands, which left herds of half-starved peasants ousted by herds of sheep. He’d tried to provide for poverty-stricken townsfolk as well. He’d even tried to save agriculture from destruction. And Parliament had opposed him at every turn. The masses shouted aloud for Tom and hated Somerset, their would-be benefactor.
He’d gone to lengths of which he preferred not to think now, to get the Regency into his own hands. And here was Tom, apparently the idol of that sullen, stubborn boy, the King, and boasting of it. Demanding the care of “the King’s person,” and scheming to bring about a marriage between Edward and his ward, the young Lady Jane Grey, whom he had contrived to domicile in his town house and in his old mother’s care.