The Tudor Rose (28 page)

“And the money was your own,” muttered Mattie.

“But how right his Grace was in saying that my private inheritance from the Clare estates does not go very far between all of us!” sighed Elizabeth, who could not resist buying her sisters pretty things for their approaching marriages or her mother occasional presents for her special comfort. “From now on I am going to try to live 'out of my own,' as those unpleasant councillors, Empson and Dudley, are always saying. After all, my husband set me a fine example, spending less on the splendour of his coronation and more on pastimes for the people. He means to do such fine things for the country, and if I can help him over the first lean years it will be my share towards it. Only I wish someone had taught me how to economize!”

“You have never been really extravagant, Madam,” expostulated old Mattie.

“Not to our way of thinking, dear Mattie. But then poverty is so relative. If I say that I will have my miniver cape turned instead of buying a new one for next winter, one must remember that most people do not possess any miniver at all.”

“Perhaps they do not need it, being much less gazed upon!” laughed Jane Stafford.

“Well, anyhow, while I am waiting for my baby we will go over my wardrobe and see in what ways I can retrench,” decided Elizabeth. “There is that crimson velvet of mine which has much wear in it, Mattie. I will have the tailor turn it. And I need not order so many caps. After all, I shall not be going out in public.”

And so the busy days of preparation passed and Elizabeth was glad to find herself established in the sweetness of the country. The old palace of Winchester delighted her, and because it was summertime she scarcely noticed its draughts and inconveniences. She wrote frequently to her husband and thought the more of him because he had not excused himself from the danger of going north, and was amazed and not a little awed to hear how easily he had managed to quell all Yorkist hostility as he went and how he had finally been received without any outward show of resistance from the citizens of York. “We found every other inn had the sign of the white boar,” he wrote pleasantly, “but they are all magically become blue boars now.”

“When he comes back we shall have so much to talk about,” Elizabeth thought, still hopefully envisaging that complete union of marriage which had so far eluded them.

But after Henry's triumphant return to London so many pressing affairs detained him that he did not reach Winchester until after the date upon which the strict etiquette upon which her mother-in-law was such an authority decreed that she should take to her room.

For days workmen had been stripping the worn old arras from the walls and replacing it with fresh tapestry embroidered only with flowers. There must be no scenes depicted upon it at all, lest the sight of lifelike human figures or animals in the chase should frighten her or make some bad impression upon her unborn child. Even the windows had been draped, except for one near the great fourposter bed from which she could look over the old cathedral town and the green Hampshire hills. And when all the preparations had been made according to the Countess of Richmond's instructions, the lords and officers of the Queen's household escorted Elizabeth to the door and there bade her farewell, passing over to her women their various duties so that, save for her physicians, she would see no man until the day of her deliverance in October.

Elizabeth, who loved the outdoor world, looked out upon the beech trees, wishing that they would begin to turn russet to their fall. Without her lively sisters the time might have dragged indeed; but, after all, it seemed to pass quickly, for towards the end of September, a month before such glad news was expected, the bells of Winchester Cathedral rang out and Elizabeth's son was born.

“The bells will soon be ringing all over England,” she thought, “more gratefully perhaps than for any other prince!” And lying there, worn out and content, she knew that for so general a benison all her own personal griefs and strivings and disappointment had been worth while.

While her tired eyes were yet closed she could hear, more exciting even than the bells, the commotion of horses being brought out and messengers riding off to London with the news; and then someone was holding a cup of hot broth to her lips and Mattie was bending over her with a bundle in her arms, showing her her son.

“You have been wonderfully brave, my Bess,” her mother was whispering, kissing her forehead with a new gentleness.

And from somewhere a little further off Margaret of Richmond's voice was saying, “Someone has gone to tell the King. He is out hunting. We did not expect this joy so soon, but he will be back soon.”

And Elizabeth had lain there, thanking God. She was glad, of course, that at last she had been allowed to give Henry something; but she did not really mind how long he was coming. It was so much like Heaven lying there out of pain, and her mother had drawn the bed-curtain a little so that she could watch the tiny red-faced creature yelling lusty protest to the proddings of the doctors.

And when the door was flung wide and the King had come home from hunting, his eyes went straight to that same precious bundle, now lying contentedly in Mattie's lap before the fire, and in his eyes there had been the brightness of a man who sees the final seal set upon some hazardous task. “If I can ever hope to see Henry Tudor show emotion, I must look for it now,” thought Elizabeth, watching him stand there, rubbing his hands together, with his mother beside him.

“Although so premature, the physicians say that he is a healthy child. We shall have to arrange for the christening in Westminster,” Margaret was saying.

“Yes,” agreed Henry. And then, tearing himself away from the new wonder of his heir, he had come briskly to Elizabeth's bedside. “And afterwards, in London, for my wife's coronation,” he said, lifting her limp hand from the coverlet and kissing it.

“He is a just man who pays his debts, but very cautious,” whispered some devil in Elizabeth's tired mind. “No heir—no coronation.” And the ridiculous words kept repeating themselves in her bemused mind until, in the middle of whatever he was telling her, she forgot he was there and fell fast asleep.

Next morning, when she woke slowly and deliciously to a realization that she had a son and that her slender body was her own again, her sisters were gathered in her room. Elizabeth's glance went straight to the hearth, and there, sure enough, was small Katherine solemnly rocking the carved wooden cradle and dumpling little Bridget staring round-eyed at its sleeping occupant.

“Darling Bess!” cried Cicely, the moment Elizabeth stirred. “You have slept such a long time. Are you better?”

“Quite better,” smiled Elizabeth. “Where is the Countess?”

“Resting,” said Ann, perching herself on the other side of the great bed. “She has to rest some time.”

Their glances met in understanding laughter. “My mother-in-law is kindness itself,” murmured Elizabeth lazily. “But this is like being at home again. If only Ned and Dickon could be…”

“Is the King pleased?” asked Cicely quickly, seeing the tears gathering in her eyes.

“Enormously,” said Elizabeth, blinking them away. “Tell someone to draw all the curtains and let in the lovely sunlight.”

“There go the bells again,” said Cicely, helping herself to some of the fine grapes the King had sent. “There's to be such a grand christening in the cathedral, and the Bishop and all the Chapter are scurrying about getting out their best vestments.”

“I suppose the King's mother is arranging all that too,” grimaced Ann. “Who is to be the precious poppet's godfather?”

“Milord Stanley says it will be the Earl of Oxford,” said Cicely.

“But he is so fat!”

“He may be quite kind,” smiled Elizabeth.

“And the godmother?”

“Months ago, when I first knew that I was going to have a baby, I specially asked that our mother might be.”

“Oh, I am so glad!” cried both girls in unison.

“She is ageing so, don't you think?” said Elizabeth. “And I was afraid she would feel hurt if Henry asked his own mother.”

Katherine, gently removed by watchful Mattie from a self-appointed rocking task which was becoming too vigorous, came across the room to join them. “He is a lovely baby, Bess,” she said. “But are you sure he is ours?”

“Of course. He is Bess's,” they laughed. “Why not?”

“Then why,” she asked earnestly, staring very hard at each of their heads in turn, “does he have brown hair?”

Elizabeth stretched out a hand and drew her small sister close until her inquisitive little snub of a nose was on a level with the grand rose-embroidered coverlet. She had noticed the same thing herself and felt that God had not, after all, bade her baby look much like Dickon. “His father, the King, has brown hair,” she explained.

“Does he belong to the King too?” persisted Katherine.

“Of course, stupid!” said Ann.

“Then will he be called Henry?”

“No, my poppet, I do not think so,” said Elizabeth, who had expected that too.

“Not Henry?” exclaimed the two older girls. “What
will
he be called, then?”

Elizabeth raised herself a little on her pillows. “I have just remembered what the King was saying—before I fell asleep. It was about our baby's name. He wants him to be called Arthur.”

There was an amazed silence in the room. Even her busy bedchamber women stopped whatever they happened to be doing. “But we never
knew
an Arthur,” objected Ann, voicing the thoughts of all of them.

“No,” said the infant's disappointed mother.

“Then why… ?”

“Because of his ancestor—who lived here. Good King Arthur, who had a round table for his knights. Oh, you must
know
,” went on Elizabeth, speaking a little impatiently because she was still weak and quite as amazed as they were. “There are all his fiery Pendragon banners and his Welsh ancestry—right back to the earliest Kings—”

“All right, poor sweet. Rest again and don't try to talk any more now. I don't suppose you like the name any more than we do,” soothed Ann, bringing the rose-water to bathe Elizabeth's forehead.

But Cicely, snipping off another grape, suddenly began to giggle. “Well, at least Bess can count herself fortunate,” she remarked disrespectfully, “that he didn't take it into his head to call the poor child Cadwallader!”

W
HEN ELIZABETH TOOK UP residence at Sheen, that loveliest of places beside the gently flowing Thames, she felt in her adaptable way that here at last was going to be her married home. Henry had practically rebuilt the old palace so that it was gay with walled gardens and turrets and large latticed windows gleaming in the sun, and he and his mother loved it better than any mansion they possessed. They renamed it with their own family name of Richmond. “Here I will pass my days and rear my children,” thought Elizabeth, “after I have been to London for my coronation.”

But, for all his fine promise, Henry had done nothing about her coronation. At first it had been impossible because she had suffered from a distressing ague after her baby's birth—an ague which had so undermined her health that she had been obliged to linger a long time in the old town of Winchester, and had finally had a chapel built in the cathedral there as a thank-offering for her recovery. But by now it was high summer and she only a few miles from London, and all her Yorkist friends began to mutter angrily in secret corners about the Lancastrian King. Particularly Dorset and Lovell and her cousin the gifted young Earl of Lincoln, who—being son to one of Edward the Fourth's sisters—had been considered heir presumptive until little Arthur Tudor was born. And Elizabeth's mother grew dangerously indignant, lashing out with her sharp tongue against Henry as she used to against Richard and imprudently inveigling sympathizers to discuss his shortcomings in the pleasant apartments which he had provided for her.

“I pray that she will not begin her meddling again!” sighed Elizabeth anxiously, in the privacy of her own room.

“Do not worry about the sharp things she says, for she has no power now,” soothed Cicely. “There is nothing she can
do
.”

“Not personally,” agreed Elizabeth. “But, all the same, I do not like the way Dorset and Cousin Lincoln keep bringing their friends to talk in her room whenever Henry is called away on state affairs to Westminster. And Henry has been away so much of late.”