“In their livery,” he wound up with some pomposity, “I do now accuse you of being part of Lord Thomas Seymour’s plot to overthrow his King…
“You are excellent honest, Sir Robert,” Elizabeth said coolly. “How? I’d have you say it.”
“How can I say it plainer?” Tyrwhitt exclaimed, nonplused.
“In words,” Elizabeth bade him, and nodded encourage-ingly, with her aloof, indifferent smile.
“Have it then!” Tyrwhitt was at the end of his tether. “For when you were at Chelsea, he played with you, indulged in intimate familiarities, cozened your heart, cajoled your innocence, until you had none… Until you yourself invited him, and, in the end, did grant him.”
Elizabeth put her head on one side with an attentive air, And waited.
“Grant him? … What?”
Lady Tyrwhitt took a step nearer, leaned on her hands spread on the table.
“What marvelous need for insults have you?” she asked.
Elizabeth turned her eyes on Tyrwhitt.
“Say it.”
But his wife burst out in a rush of words before he could speak.
“That you were driven from Chelsea by the Queen for bedding with her husband, and that he’s had you since, and that through him and your own base desires, you are by him with child! …”
Elizabeth got to her feet. They watched her avidly. Their faces went blank with astonishment as she swept to the fireplace, turned to face them, and uttered a clear peal of laughter.
“Then by the God that fashioned women so, ’twas a seed given me in most miraculous manner!”
“Do you deny it?” Lady Tyrwhitt gasped.
“I do not deny!” Elizabeth called loudly, and they exchanged swift, triumphant looks, which vanished as she pulled her brocade gown tight as a drum, and thrust out her small, flat stomach with a blatant gesture. “If this womb of mine be quick, there are no words of mine could make it still. No! I’ll send to London to have me there. No better word could ever scotch this slander than that I stand myself within their sight, till the time for seven pregnancies be past.”
“I pity you!” Lady Tyrwhitt mouthed once more, at a loss before this armor of effrontery.
Elizabeth turned on her.
“Pity me not. I’m sated with your pities. You are so full of them that want of wit slops them all over. They run down, and expose the lies that they would cover.
“Lady, take carel . . .” The ringing menace and sudden power in her young voice were like a blow in the face. “For tampering with gossip can be slander, and may yet hinge, for your own sake, too near to treason. … You pity me! I charge you, take more care, lest at some future day I may have cause, in my own time and way, to pity you… .”
She was in bed — lying taut and rigidly still as though she were bound hand and foot, staring into the darkness. Across the room, Lady Tyrwhitt was on the pallet where Ashley was wont to sleep. Elizabeth drew her breath without sound, would not allow herself a movement. She felt as though even the thoughts blazing in her brain were visible in the dense blackness to the woman who lay in her chamber.
Elizabeth had never in her life slept without some attendant in the room. But this was the first time that she lay wide awake
in the night knowing that an enemy was her companion… , This was not Ashley snoring comfortably or waking with a jerk to ask, “Did you call, sweetheart?” This was not love wrapped round her like one of her warm blankets, keeping comfort in the room like a taper light or the paling glow of the fire. There was hate in the room tonight…
… Ashley … they’ll terrify Ashley, and poor, fat Parry … they’ll show them the rack … and God alone knows what else… They’ll hurt—no, God help me, they won’t hurt those two poor, silly sheep of mine, they’ll never need to … those two will squeal all that’s asked of them before the screw turns… Elizabeth thrust her knuckles against her teeth to choke down her sick dread. She must not scream. She must not make a sound.
Tom … Tom … where are you this night? There’s no getting a word to you, to warn you of deathly peril. Nor would it help you if I could so reach you… Oh Tom … heart’s heart … it’s as Cecil said—the net’s closing … dragging you down … and I think … it may be that it’s drawn about my neck too…
God! God! give me wit to fight. There’s naught else left me. I had thought that ties of blood were a shield and a surety.
… Edward’s my brother and Edward’s King … but he’s in their hands, he’s no more than a jester’s bladder on a stick in their hands … and they will not let me to him. And Somerset is brother to Tom—own brother to Tom — and he will have Tom’s life. … It is the very curse of Cain…
I must not show anger, howsoever insolent they bear themselves, these Tyrwhitts… God’s blood! That ever I should hear any speak so to me, and see them yet live…
But I must show no anger.
Give me wit, kind God. Give me wit…
The intolerable days spun themselves out. Sir Robert Tyr-whitt constituted himself Grand Inquisitor. Day after day he harangued the girl, urging her to admit her misconduct, to sue for pardon, which, he said, her youthfulness would doubtless ensure her. He dictated forms of letters to Elizabeth, which she refused to adopt. He beset her with questions, with insinuations, with arguments. He compelled her to rack her brain and memory to present her case. He had a sorry time of it in the process… The petty malice and spite which he and his lady brought, with relish, to their task, met its match in the unequaled mental skill of a girl not yet sixteen.
“I do assure Your Grace” wrote Tyrwhitt ruefully to the Protector, “she has a good wit, and nothing is to be gotten from her but by great policy”
And again, “I perceive that she will abide more storms ere she will accuse Mistress Ashley … the love she yet beareth her is to be wondered at!”
Elizabeth objected strongly to the usurping presence of Lady Tyrwhitt, and told her husband with biting candor that the fact of having a “governess” set over her in Ashley’s absence would do her own reputation no good, which was an unpleasant pill for that virtuous lady to swallow. Tyrwhitt’s own comment to Somerset revealed his own helpless exasperation:
. . if I should say my — fantasy, it were more meet she should have two than one. . . .”
Elizabeth was most difficult… The Tyrwhitts expected a hot-blooded wench and a termagant; they were up against an ice-cool, royal young lady, who indulged in occasional floods of tears, but who was not to be moved to a single word that she did not choose to utter.
Elizabeth would not write at Sir Robert’s persuasive dictation; but she wrote herself, to Somerset, letters of wounded dignity.
“My lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which, besides the great desire l have to see the King’s Majesty, I shall most heartily desire your lordship that 1 may come to court … that 1 may show myself there as I am.”
And since this was denied her:
...if it might seem good to your lordship and the rest of the Council, to send forth a proclamation into the counties that they refrain their tongues, declaring how the tales be but lies. …”
Later, Somerset was to accede to this request. But not before the story began to be circulated which has come down to the present day: the story of the midwife taken, blindfolded, to a great house where she delivered a young woman of a child which was instantly and horribly done to death. She was blindfolded again, paid munificently, and conveyed home. As she waited for the tedious birth, the woman cast about for something to while away the time, and snipped a square of stuff from the bed curtains and neatly stitched it into place again. The curtains in due course became heirlooms; and the family concerned said that the infant was the Princess Elizabeth’s…