An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (30 page)

When Rodney left the room after dinner to pay for the men and horses who had brought him to Camfield from Plymouth, and who wished to start the journey back at dawn, Lizbeth seized her opportunity.

“I will leave for London early tomorrow morning,” she said. “It would be rude to linger now that Mister Hawkhurst has returned.

She saw the relief on Sir Harry’s face.

“Everything is in readiness,” Catherine said smoothly, and Lizbeth knew that she was glad to be rid of her. She crept away then before Rodney came back. But as she crossed the Hall she met him face to face. Swiftly she looked around. There was no one within earshot. She laid her hand on his arm and spoke barely above a whisper,

“Francis is dead. I have no time to relate how and why he died, but tell Father – and the others – that he was brave and that you were – proud of him. Her eyes besought him.

“I will do as you ask,” Rodney replied.

“Thank you! Oh, thank you.”

Her eyes, soft and grateful, met Rodney’s and the words of gratitude died on her lips. She was so close to him that she could hear the quick intake of his breath. For a moment the Hall swam around her and was gone. They were alone – she and Rodney on the edge of the world, there was nothing and nobody else, only the two of them together.

Then like a thunderbolt Sir Harry’s voice boomed out,

“Come back to the fire, Hawkhurst. God’s mercy, but it is as cold as charity out here!”

Lizbeth looked over her shoulder. Her father was standing in the doorway of the Great Chamber, a glass of wine in his hand.

“I am coming, sir,” Rodney replied. “I was just speaking with Lizbeth about the voyage.

“If the girl wants to talk, bring her back to the fire,” Sir Harry said testily.

But Lizbeth was already running up the stairs.

“Good night, Rodney.”

Her voice seemed to echo and re-echo round the high walls. If he answered, she did not hear him, and the door of her bedroom closed behind her.

She sat down at her dressing – table. He had gone back to Phillida! She had half-expected that Phillida would come upstairs with her but Phillida, who had been too weak to leave her bed but a few days before, was sitting listening to Rodney.

Lizbeth let Nanna undress her and take away her clothes, and she made a pretence of settling herself among the pillows; but she knew she would not sleep. Taking a book, she attempted to read; but two hours later, when she heard the others coming upstairs to bed. She realised that not one word of the pages she had turned had penetrated her consciousness.

Rodney was under the same roof. She had often thought of him lying in his bunk on the other side of the ship; and yet that he was here at Camfield, her own home, made him seem somehow closer than he had ever been before.

She thought of the hardships and the dangers they had shared together and wondered if, lying in luxury on the thick feather mattress in one of the fine, panelled guest chambers, he too, was thinking of her.

Then she remembered how Phillida had looked at him across the supper table, and she knew that she was only being foolish. Don Miguel might have called her lovely, but she had no beauty in comparison with the gold and white fairness of her half-sister.

Lizbeth blew out the candles, crept from her bed and, drawing back the curtains, sat in the window-seat to look out on the darkness of the night. She could hear the wind whistling round the house and the rain pattering sharply against the diamond-paned casement. She felt desperately sad and utterly alone.

Francis was gone, her mother was dead – there was no one left who really mattered to her. She would go away. Perhaps in service to the Queen she would find forgetfulness She heard the hours strike one by one and then she must have fallen asleep, for when she awoke she was cramped and cold and the night had passed. It was a grey, blustery day and yet she was glad – there was nothing about it to remind her of the Caribbean sun. Not long after eight o’clock, Lizbeth, having breakfasted in her room, came downstairs. Her horse and an escort of grooms and outriders were waiting for her outside the front door. Her luggage was piled up on a coach in which Nanna was also to travel to London. Lizbeth had wanted to say good-bye to Phillida, but she was told that Phillida was asleep. Catherine also would make no appearance at this hour in the morning, Lizbeth knew, and she was glad that she would not have to say farewell to her stepmother.

Her father was up, as she had expected he would be. He kissed her boisterously, told her to behave herself, and put a heavy purse of money into her hand.

“When you need more, you have but to send for it,” he said.

“Thank you, Father.”

His generosity, she knew, was not for herself but for the position she would hold as Maid of Honour, which he took as a personal tribute to his own importance.

She said good-bye to the servants in the Hall and then the groom helped her to mount her favourite horse.

She looked very different from what she usually did when she rode at Camfield. There were no high boots and short breeches upon her today to scandalise the citizens of London. Her full-skirted riding habit was of green velvet and the plume which decorated her hat was canary yellow and reached almost to her shoulders.

She gathered up the reins in her gloved hand and even as she opened her lips to give the order to go, she saw someone come through the doorway of the house and walk towards her. She felt herself tingle and every vein and muscle in her body seemed to awake to a throbbing excitement.

“You are leaving, Lizbeth?”

She must have imagined the dismay in his voice.

“I am going to London. Father will tell you that I am to become Maid of Honour to Her Majesty.”

“I had no idea of this.”

Was it only astonishment in his expression? she wondered.

“I have not seen you alone,” he added. “ There is much we should discuss together.”

“I am afraid I must go.”

Lizbeth spoke quickly. She was afraid, desperately afraid, of losing her self-control as she looked down into his eyes. She wanted, more than she had wanted anything in the whole of her life before, to lean down and press her lips against his. She felt as though everything would be worth the risk, even the horror, indignation and scandal it would cause. She dared not look at him again.

“I must go,” she said, urging her horse forward. “Everything is arranged.”

She was moving now – quicker and quicker.

“Lizbeth, I beg of you – ”

His voice was lost in the clatter of hoofs. She knew without turning that he was still standing there in the drive, watching the cavalcade of servants following her at a jog-trot. It was agony not to turn round. She felt the sweat break out on her forehead in spite of the cold of the day.

There were the gates ahead; now he could no longer be looking at her – they were out of sight. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream her love for him aloud so that all could hear. But she did none of these things; she just kept riding on down the twisting, narrow road, puddled and rutted, which would lead presently to the broader high road which led directly into London....

Lizbeth had of course been to London on many occasions but always the City which had been called “the storehouse and mart of Europe” never ceased to thrill her. From the moment they came in sight of the old City wall, a relic of its battlemented past, she would feel excitement springing within her. Whatever the weather, it seemed to her that in winter, summer or spring London looked beautiful.

Its spires and roofs today were silver against a grey sky and the Thames was a deep molten silver on which were reflected hundreds of snowy-plumaged swans which were as much a part of the river’s life as the great barges.

Lizbeth loved travelling by water, and indeed, everyone preferred the river, for it was much more pleasant and in many ways safer than travelling by road. But today she only had a glimpse of the Thames as they rode through the crowded streets. As usual, she was amused and delighted by the hubbub and the noise.

There were men and women crying hot apple-pies, live periwinkles and hot oat cakes. There was the sweep announcing himself with a lengthy call, and pretty girls selling oranges and lemons with a special song so that all should hear their clear musical notes arising from the general melée and come out to buy.

Lizbeth found she had forgotten the diversity of things there were to see and hear in London. Porters staggering and sweating under enormous burdens hurried past her. Grave-faced merchants bound for the Royal Exchange passed slowly by in their long, richly-furred robes and their fine gold chains; gallants resplendent in silks, satins and jewels made a glittering show as they swaggered past, envied by the countrymen in their russet jackets with blue cambric sleeves and buttons, their “slop” breeches, green bonnets and hose of grey kersey.

Lizbeth rode along Cheapside – the Holborn highway, which was the most important road in all London. It was a broad, well-paved street, famous for all the gold and silver vessels displayed for sale in its shops.

Everyone who visited London was well aware that it was dangerous to linger in many of the less-famous thoroughfares. Dirty and over-crowded, there were numberless streets in which Elizabeth was trying to force the rule of “one house-one family”. But even the Council was powerless against the network of narrow, badly paved lanes, half-darkened by the overhanging fronts of the houses and rendered unsanitary by the custom of their inhabitants of depositing their garbage outside the front door.

In the better parts of the City there were gardens to all the grand houses; and though they were now flowerless and leafless, Lizbeth knew that when the spring and summer came they would be filled with flowers, fruit and shady trees. But for the moment there was no need to miss the beauties of spring and summer when the colourful trays of pedlars were held high in their arms for Lizbeth’s inspection as she rode through the crowds.

“Fine Seville oranges, fine lemons!”

“Hey ye any corns on your feet or toes?”

“What do ye lack? Do ye buy, Mistress. See what ye lack: pins, points, garters, Spanish gloves or silk ribbons. Will ye buy any starch or clear complexion, Mistress?” Lizbeth was laughing as she brushed the importunate pedlars aside and came at length to the quiet and dignity of the Palace of Whitehall.

For a moment she felt afraid as she looked at the great, sprawling grey building fronting on to the river, where waited the Queen’s state barge.

She had a sudden longing for Camfield and the peace of her own bedroom looking out over the park and lakes, and then with a little mental shake of her shoulders she told herself she was being ridiculous. She had to forget Camfield and all it contained. This was a new and exciting life and what was there in it to make her afraid?

It was, however, difficult not to be overawed by the Palace, and long before she reached the apartments of the Maids of Honour Lizbeth found herself awed and astonished not once but a dozen times. Great galleries hung with pictures and fine tapestries took her breath away. The Tilt Yard and the Bowling Green were green oases seen from the diamond-paned casements opening out of a labyrinth of corridors, high chambers and fine staircases.

“I shall never find my way out of here,” Lizbeth thought breathlessly, and she felt for one mad moment as if she were imprisoned in some architectural maze from which she could never escape. And then, when she came to the Maids of Honours’ apartments, she was entranced. From the windows she looked out over the Thames.

There were barges moving along the still water, some of them belonging to the great Livery Companies, or to the nobles whose houses lined the river between Westminster and the City. There were watermen plying for hire on the river, with every kind of cry; and among them moved the swans, quite unperturbed by the traffic around them, arching their white necks or dipping them low as if in search of hidden treasure.

Lizbeth clapped her hands together.

“’Tis lovely,” she exclaimed, “lovely!” and turned to see Nanna smiling at her.

“Of course it’s lovely,” Nanna agreed stoutly. “A palace fit for a Queen, and that’s how it should be.”

Lizbeth laughed at that. It had been a great concession on Catherine’s part to allow her to bring Nanna with her. She had suggested various other maids, but Lizbeth had been insistent, and after much argument Nanna had finally been permitted to accompany her.

“Come and look at London,” Lizbeth said, linking her arm through that of the old woman.

“I’ve got no time for sightseeing,” Nanna retorted sternly. “There’s all the unpacking to do and the good Lord knows what else to be seen to.”

Lizbeth laughed out loud as Nanna hurried away to direct the porters who were carrying up the trunks. Watching the barges, then, Lizbeth felt her mind drift away to Rodney. She could never be free of him for long, and now once again she could hear his voice calling her as she had. fled away from him down the drive. Should she have waited? She asked herself that question and even as she did so, she knew she had done the right thing. She had left him to Phillida.

Restlessly, because she could not sit and think of them together, she walked across the room. All over England girls of her own age would be envying her today – a new Maid of Honour to Her Majesty, a new face at Whitehall. She was to be revered, speculated about and envied.

It was hard to believe it was true that she was here in the Palace and in a short while, perhaps in a few hours, she would be in the presence of the most important woman in the whole world – Elizabeth, to whom the whole world looked in admiration, envy, and as far as her own subjects were concerned, in adoration. She, Lizbeth, was to serve her, wait on her and constantly to be in that splendid, awe-inspiring presence!

And then, as she thought of her good fortune, Lizbeth, looking out over the busy river with the walls of Whitehall encompassing her, knew that all this pomp and glory was wasted on her. For she wanted only the arms of one man around her for security, for splendour and glory the touch of his lips on hers.