Authors: Margaret Campbell Barnes
“How
did
you manage to pass?” asked Elizabeth, who had been too overjoyed at seeing him to think about it before.
“No one challenged me, and I am afraid I did not even notice Nesfield's men,” confessed the warlike Duke of Buckingham's son, shamed by his absentmindedness.
“Then you must have been making up a sonnet to Bess's eyebrows!” giggled Cicely.
“The fact is that as soon as the Countess of Richmond had your message she asked me to bring her physician to see if he could be of service to the—to your lady mother. I suppose she must have persuaded her husband, Lord Stanley, to get the new King's permission, for certainly Doctor Lewis was conducted immediately to your mother's room.”
“That was very kind of the Countess, and I pray you convey to her my deep gratitude. Although her sympathies must be Lancastrian, I sometimes think she is one of the best and ablest women in the realm.”
“And certainly the greatest patron of learning. You should hear the students up at Oxford and Cambridge singing her praises!”
While Cicely joined her younger sisters and shared in the gifts he had brought to relieve their tedium, Stafford beckoned to his servant to bring the book of poems he had chosen for Elizabeth, and they sat for a while reading some of his favourite passages.
“I so much miss the books my father used to bring me,” she said gratefully, poring over the exquisite illuminations. “This will help to pass the hours and be a kind of—escape.”
“You do not need to stay here. King Richard would willingly have you all at Court, you know.”
“In his power, you mean.”
“I think he would be kind.”
“Ah, well, my mother is so certain this is best for our security; though, for myself, I would barter security for freedom.”
“Because half your heart is in a place you cannot get to.”
“Yes. I would sooner be a servant in the Tower so that I could make my brothers' bed!” Elizabeth forgot the poems and began moving restlessly about the room. “Is there still no news of them, Tom?”
“My father, although loyal at heart to all of you, is often called there to Council-meetings, and he makes what enquiries he can,” answered Stafford, quietly laying aside the book. “But no one in the royal household ever sees them.”
“They do not play with Anne Neville's little son? Nor share his tutor?”
“Not that I ever heard of.”
“Nor ever go out riding in the sunshine, of course. Oh, Tom, how they must long to speak to us, and how heavily the hours must hang!”
“At least I have something to tell you which may comfort you,” he said, having kept his best tidings to soften the rest. “I invented some errand which took me by boat down-river, and as we rowed past the Tower I saw them looking out from the walk upon the battlements. I was not near enough for speech, of course, but one of them waved to me.”
“Oh, that is wonderful! How kind of you!”
“It is no more than many others do. I do assure you that many a good citizen of London grows anxious for them and takes boat that way. And several swear they have seen them.”
“Then it is certain they are alive!”
“Why, Bess, my dear, you must not let yourself think like that!” he remonstrated, taking her firmly by the shoulders so that she must stand still and heed him. “We, who have grown up in a country rent by civil war, know only too well the danger of a weak King from whom any man with ambition may try to snatch the throne. It is to prevent such wanton bloodshed that my father and Lord Stanley ultimately supported those who offered Gloucester the crown. But neither of them would have done so had he not sworn to them that no harm should befall the Princes. They say that when Stanley was released, after Hastings' execution, he made that a condition in return for his powerful allegiance. The times we live in have forced your uncle to violent deeds, but he is not an inhuman monster. Why must you torment yourself so?”
Elizabeth turned her head aside and stood plucking at the tassel of a cushion, as if debating within herself whether to tell him something. “I had a terrible dream,” she said at last, with slow reluctance.
“When?” asked her cousin, releasing her.
“A few nights ago. Just before Gloucester set the guard, I think.”
“What was it?” asked Stafford, gently taking the cushion from her and throwing it onto the stone window-seat.
She tried to smile at him, as if deprecating her stupidity. “Truly, I cannot remember. It was one of those nebulous nightmares, full of feelings rather than of facts. You know how sometimes one does not even see the people in one's dreams but is only aware that they are there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It was Ned. He was crying out to me. Calling me in some horrible fear, and I could not get to him to help him. That was really all. Except that my feet felt heavy as if I were shod like a warhorse so that I could not hurry. I tried and tried, and all the time his desperate, pitiful crying grew fainter and fainter until it was smothered in the blackness of the night…”
There was such urgent horror in Elizabeth's voice, and she— unlike the rest of the family—was a person so little given to imaginings, that even Stafford, who wished most to reassure her, could think of nothing to say.
“It may have been because I was worrying about my mother's health,” she added, striving to speak more lightly. “Or because someone told us that ever since he understood that the coronation was not for him Edward has seemed to care for nothing. That he is not eating his food or bothering to dress properly. Poor handsome Ned, who used to think so much about his appearance! But, there, it may not be true. One hears such rumours!”
“I should try not to give heed to them,” advised Stafford. “After all, as I told you, I saw them with my own eyes standing in the morning sunlight.”
“But how long ago was that?”
“Only a week, perhaps.”
“Ah! Before my dream.”
“Please, Bess—”
“Oh, I am sorry. I know I am behaving as dramatically as my mother,” she apologized, blaming herself for scant filial sympathy in the past. “But tell me this. Did the boys recognize you?”
“I imagine so since one of them waved.”
“Which?”
“Dickon, I feel sure.”
“It must have been a great comfort to them. Oh, how much I wish I could go on the river too. To see them. Just to see them!”
“You worry about the Dowager Queen's health and she is prostrate with grief, while you go about your daily affairs. Yet I think the love you bear your family is beyond hers. It is incredible,” said Stafford, watching her pitifully. “You try to hearten and instruct your sisters here while half your heart is caged with your brothers in the Tower. And best of all I believe you love that young imp Richard. Or ought I not to have said that?” he added, as she did not reply immediately. “Do I, perhaps, presume?”
Elizabeth laid a reassuring hand upon his arm. “No, dear friend, you who have cared so much for my griefs and joys could never presume. And you are more discerning than I had supposed a man could be. Yes,” she admitted, almost as though voicing some newly realized truth to herself, “I do not know why, but best of all I love Richard.”
“Better than she will ever love me,” thought Stafford. “And why must I try to make her, since in all men's minds she is still the King's daughter and it could only bring her useless pain?”
And so he stood in silence until her glance, happening to come to rest upon the lad who had carried the book, gave birth to an idea. “Tom, that yellow-haired page of yours,” she began tentatively. “He is about Edward's height, would you not say? Do you suppose he would like to have some gay old suit of the real King's, if I can find one, and leave that plain serving-man's livery behind?”
It was some moments before Stafford picked up the trend of her thoughts. “I can only imagine that he would be delighted,” he laughed. “But I would not let him.”
“Not if I asked you?”
“Not if you bribed me with all the kisses that I hunger for,” he told her, with intentional lightness. “I can guess what is in that fond and desperate mind of yours, but I care for your safety even more than for forbidden ecstasies. There will be no boat-rides past Gloucester's well-manned Tower for you, my lady.”
“Then I must wait and pray for patience, I suppose,” shrugged Elizabeth, turning away. There was an edge to her pleasant voice which betokened nervous strain. “Doctor Lewis is a long time with the Queen. I thought her Grace would have sent for me,” she complained presently. “I trust he finds her no worse.”
Even as she spoke a door was flung open at the far end of the parlour and the sound of Elizabeth Woodville's voice reached them, lilting to laughter. “On the contrary, she sounds much better,” smiled Stafford. “It would seem that he has effected a cure, and—since I fear my royal aunt's tongue even more in health than in sickness—I will, by your leave, await him in the garden.”
To Elizabeth's surprise, her mother, whom she had left propped up in bed, walked almost briskly into the parlour leaning on Doctor Lewis's arm. It was weeks since she had looked so well, with brilliance in her dark French eyes, a spot of colour high on either cheek and much of her old becoming vivacity. “Bess, my child, you were wise as usual,” she called gaily, as Elizabeth rose from a formal curtsy. “I am glad you persuaded me to see the dear Countess's physician. See how much good he has done me already!”
Glancing at the grizzled, simian-looking little man, Elizabeth decided that he looked clever enough to cure the Devil. “What have you prescribed, Doctor?” she asked, in that kindly way she had of putting even the humblest people at ease. “Some potent elixir of youth, I should imagine!”
“At least something to live for,” laughed the flattered patient. “Come and sit beside me, Bess. Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, has sent us a message, and as it is confidential we will send the others away.” With a wave of one bejewelled hand Elizabeth Woodville cleared the parlour, but to her daughter's surprise the physician remained. “Doctor Lewis will be attending me frequently. He understands my symptoms,” explained the deposed Dowager Queen, with apparent irrelevance.
“Is it about the Princes, Madam?” asked Elizabeth eagerly, the moment the three of them were alone.
“No, there is no more news about them, alas! I begin to doubt if I shall ever see them again.”
“Then what particularly is there to make life more attractive?” murmured her daughter, seating herself reluctantly.
But even while the pessimistic Dowager Queen sighed over her misfortune her acquisitive mind seemed to have moved on to some fresh field of interest. “The Countess sends me word how gifted and personable a young man her son has grown,” she said.
“Naturally, since he is her
only
son,” smiled Elizabeth.
“But all reports confirm the trend of her devotion. Doctor Lewis here, who has just returned from Brittany, has been telling me in what high esteem Henry of Richmond is held.”
The clever little doctor was quick to take up his cue. “He is handsome and prudent and a great lover of learning,” he said, his shrewd eyes having observed Stafford's gift book lying beside the Princess's embroidery.
“And his mother says it is high time he took a wife,” added the Dowager Queen.
“Probably he will marry the Duke of Brittany's daughter. I heard the French Ambassador talking about it the other day,” remarked Elizabeth, with polite indifference.
But her mother leaned forward and placed a hand upon her knee. “The message was particularly for
you,”
she said impressively.
Elizabeth came out of her own private thoughts with a start. Her blue eyes stared almost uncomprehendingly. During her short life she had become accustomed to being offered as matrimonial bait for some political reason or another; but the implications of her mother's words appeared to have neither rhyme nor reason. “A message for
me
about Henry Tudor of Lancaster?” she exclaimed; and the scornful abhorrence in her voice was as unmistakable as it was purely hereditary.
“Better a well-disposed Lancastrian than a treacherous Yorkist!” snapped the Dowager Queen.
“But my father would never have heard of such a thing,” stammered Elizabeth, realizing that the suggestion was being made in earnest.
“Were your father alive to hear there would be no need of such a thing,” pointed out his widow. “But times have changed and we must change with them.”
“Have you forgotten, Madam, that Henry Tudor is attainted of treason and still in exile?”
“He might be persuaded to come home.”
“Persuaded?”
“Doctor Lewis goes back and forth, seeing to accounts of the vast estates and bearing loving messages from mother to son. The Lancastrian heir is not so cut off from affairs here as you suppose.”
The fantastic scheme began to unfold itself as a reality. None but a Woodville, thought its victim, could have conceived anything so daringly incongruous. “What chance would he have of even landing here against the will and ability of Richard of Gloucester?” asked Elizabeth contemptuously, unconscious of the involuntary compliment she paid her uncle.
Her mother's slim shoulders lifted themselves in that inimitable French shrug of hers. “None, at the moment,” she admitted. “But married to King Edward's eldest daughter—”