“Think you I have not?”
“I long to think you have, Bess.”
Like an echo, another voice outside the door called “Bess, Bess, I have the gown.”
“Who’s that?” Mary asked sharply.
“Mary,” Elizabeth began, “do not, I pray you—”
The door was thrust open. Ashley, a glittering gown spread across both arms, trotted her way in.
“Save us, Bess, could you not hear me? I could not turn the latch… Your Majesty”
She lowered herself in a profound curtsy, still holding the stiff, wine-red folds carefully.
“Most gracious Mary Queen! Oh, what a joy it is to say it to you!”
Mary was glaring at her, speechless. And now turned to Elizabeth.
“Ashley! Oh no … I can scarce believe my own eyes. Is Parry with you too?”
“Below, Your Majesty.” It was Ashley who answered, still kneeling, and without lifting her eyes.
“Oh God!” Mary shuddered. “Get you hence, both of you. Bess, Bess, how could you? ”
“You knew they were both of my house again,” Elizabeth said.
“But to bring them here … to flaunt before my Court … the name they gave you because of Thomas Seymour.
… Bess, Bess, how could you?”
Joy was dashed from her, broken. A buried scar violently torn open, live and quivering. But she had only those words…
“I love them.”
“Two who confessed to your guilt?” Mary continued.
“No, no, Your Majesty,” Ashley sobbed.
She had collapsed onto the floor, crouching rather than kneeling, the stiff silk crushed in her hold.
“They did what they did from the rack, and you know it, Mary,” Elizabeth said in a tone of steel.
"And what of truth was in it?”
"Did vou not give me your word that you believed me? Did you not promise me it was forgotten? She was my nurse,” Elizabeth said. “Remember her then!”
“Aye! Your nurse. When you were in favor and I the castaway... Must all the bitterness of my life follow me here?” Mary’s voice rose in a deep cry of pain. “I thought I could look on you, Bess, and forget it.”
“Are you the Queen?” Elizabeth demanded.
“What?” Mary was dumbfounded at the question.
“Is it not now in your own hands, to be merciful and to forgive?”
“Those 1 love,” Mary muttered.
“Can you look down on those who love you, and see them weep?”
Mary turned her averted head, looked at the huddled, grotesque figure, abandoned in tears.
“Do not weep, do not weep!” she said hurriedly and with an effort. “Did I not say there have been tears enough? Stand up, then — nay, stand up.” She swept her velvet skirts over the floor, put down a jeweled hand from the great sleeve of snowy fur, and Ashley caught it to her lips, and struggled in ungainly wise to her feet.
“What is it you have there? Let me see it,” Mary said amiably.
“My gown for the procession, if it please you, Mary,” Elizabeth reminded her.
“Aye, so! I had forgot, indeed.”
She looked at the sumptuous wine-red folds, touched the
encrusting gold. Glanced from the gorgeous dress to Elizabeth and back again.
“You will be beautiful in it,” she said.
“Who will see me while you are before me?” Elizabeth smiled.
“Ashley,” Mary said suddenly, “what do you stare at?”
“You, madam,” Ashley answered simply.
“Why?” Mary was frowning.
“Before God, madam, I have not seen you look so—”
“How so?”
“So beautiful!” Ashley whispered.
“Do not lie to me,” Mary said with something between a command and a desperate plea. “For your soul’s sake, do not lie to me — about that.”
“I have not seen you look so, since—since before Bess was born,” Ashley breathed.
“Before Bess was born,” Mary echoed. “Then, I was young.”
“As you are now,” Ashley persisted stubbornly.
“You are beautiful, Mary,” Elizabeth said, clearly and very positively. “You are!”
“I was once. Do not lie to me,” Mary said still with that fearful urgency, “for I can smell out a lie to the world’s end, and I will kill all lies. Am I still so?”
“Believe me, Mary …”
“I have need to believe you. I have need of beauty, if I am to do what I must.”
Mary spoke with hoarse significance. But Elizabeth only
heard a plain woman, who was a Queen, craving beauty as a part of a Queen’s power.
“It’s true! You have it!”
Mary looked at her piercingly with those short-sighted eyes, and put out a hand to her.
“I have need of you, too.”
Elizabeth knelt swiftly, holding Mary’s hand in both her own.
“Then turn me not away from those that love me.”
Mary gave a sharp sigh, a yielding smile.
“Have it, then! Keep Ashley with you, keep Parry—keep those who love you and me both—so you be true to me and my true subject… Now, must I to prayers! … Bess, do you know what it’s been to be forced from God’s true faith? ”
“That is over,” Elizabeth told her almost as though she were reassuring a shivering child. “Now men are free to worship as they will.”
“Aye, as God wills … You too, my Bess. You will be brought to God’s ways through my own special teaching. You shall come to love God’s holy church in the dear faith of Rome… You too must help me pray to God for the one thing we must have.”
“What’s that?”
Mary was breathing fast, wetting her pallid lips.
“I must make England love me, and Spain smile on me, and Spain love me too…”
Elizabeth got quickly and nimbly to her feet.
“Spain?”
Mary nodded her head two or three times. A strange, bashful smile played on her solemn face and lit her somber eyes.
“The King of Spain—has a son—”
“Philip,” Elizabeth murmured.
“Aye, Philip!” Mary's deep voice lingered on the name. “And if God smiles on me, He will let Philip warm to me. I must be beautiful, for that favor… Then could I have that which God in His goodness will grant me.”
“What's that?”
“A Prince, a Prince, Bess.” Mary clasped her hands and her face was illumined by a gleam of something far beyond the light of a woman's hungering dream.
“A Prince out of Spain,” she breathed as though the very words were holy. “Whom God will bless, and call our true heir…”
She rose, and walked to the door.
“Go, get you to prayer, too, Bess, as I do! Make ready for tomorrow.”
Elizabeth and Ashley stood staring after her when the dragging velvets, blue as a summer midnight, had gone through the door.
Cecil came into the room at his quiet tread, so quiet that Elizabeth felt his presence before she saw him, and wheeled on him.
“Cecil! You heard?”
“I came to speak with you, madam. I see I need not.”
“Do you always lurk in shadows, to speak to me?” she demanded, venting on him something of her spirit’s turmoil.
“No, but to serve you,” he continued quietly as ever.
'‘Serve Spain then, for your betterment,” she flung at him.
“My betterment is here,” Cecil said.
“Do you think she will marry?” Elizabeth appealed, clutching at any straw of hope against hope.
Cecil gave a slight shrug.
“She has first to make Spain smile on her.”
“What do you want here with me?” Elizabeth raged. “She is your Queen, the Queen you wanted—Henry’s daughter, a Tudor Queen. What more do you want?”
“A Tudor Queen who’s English,” Cecil answered.
She looked him full in the eyes, then went to Ashley, snatched the crumpled dress from her and started for the door.
“Elizabeth,” Cecil said with a note of authority in his voice, “where are you going?”
“To do as my Queen bid me, my lord, make ready for tomorrow.” And she left the room.