Chapter 7 #2
What does a woman do when she discovers the man she’s fallen in love with has only been using her to obtain something he wants? Especially when it is her first love?
Will she bow her head and meekly accept that her suitor was more interested in money, power, and connections than in tenderer emotions?
Or will she become toughened and angry, vowing never to experience such disappointment again?
When I told Elizabeth everything the night they took Aunt Kat away, including my admonition that all involved must state they would never dream of thwarting the privy council, she listened in stony silence. She sank to her chair as I spoke, and I knelt at her feet.
As I gazed up at her, I saw a new hardness enter Elizabeth’s eyes. Tears beaded on her lashes, but she held those tears in check with an anger brighter than any I’d ever beheld in her.
The temper tantrums of Elizabeth’s childhood abruptly made way for a fierce, adult anger that she honed into a weapon as I watched.
“Keep silent that I’ve told you, my lady, I beg you,” I whispered. “Aunt Kat is innocent, and they surely will send her home on the morrow. This will pass us by.”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth responded, but absently.
“Would you like me to stay with you tonight, Your Grace?”
Elizabeth blinked and brought her attention to me once more. “No.” Her anger was grim, and I wasn’t certain at whom she directed it—me, Aunt Kat and Master Parry, Thomas Seymour, Uncle Denny, Protector Somerset? Perhaps all of us.
“Stay away from me, Eloise,” she said, suddenly harsh. “I do not want to succumb to the temptation to speak of this with you. Silence is best.”
I nodded, wiping my eyes. “Others will wonder if we do not speak at all. It is known you confide in me.”
“Then I shall pretend to be enraged with you, and not wish you by my side.” The words were sharp and quick, like sleeting rain, then she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Tell me of all you hear.”
“I understand.” My heart beat faster. For some reason I was animated by this duplicity, by a secret Elizabeth shared with me and no other. I was ashamed of myself for my gratification, but it remained.
Elizabeth slapped me then, and not a contrived slap. Her fingers stung my face, her nail catching my lip.
The ladies on the other side of the chamber looked up in interest at this new bit of excitement, whatever the cause. I had little trouble bursting into tears as I fled the room.
I spent the next several days telling myself that Aunt Kat would return right away, that Protector Somerset would admit his mistake about her complicity and send her and Master Parry home.
Seymour might have leaned toward treason, but my aunt would never even consider it.
Somerset and the king must understand this.
Uncle John remained in London. I feared to write him, in case my letter was intercepted, but he sent me one instead. He’d learned of Aunt Kat’s arrest and was distraught but ordered me to stay at Hatfield.
I knew Uncle John was right—there was little I could do in London—but I chafed and worried about my beloved aunt.
Elizabeth walked with her ladies, took her meals, and studied as usual. She played music, read, prayed, and did not allow any speculation in her hearing about Aunt Kat’s situation.
Ostensibly, she knew nothing about it. Somerset’s instructions, according to Uncle Denny, had been to tell Elizabeth nothing of the matter.
I assumed this was so Somerset could discover from Aunt Kat and Master Parry whether or not Elizabeth had been in on the plot before he made a move against her.
Somerset was a fool, though, if he thought servants would not gossip about events at Hatfield, especially something so extraordinary as Aunt Kat’s arrest. The maids and their ladies might not disobey and speak to Elizabeth directly about it, but they certainly discussed it amongst themselves.
I sewed in a corner, allowed into Elizabeth’s presence only because my services were necessary, and hid my misery.
On a blustery, dark afternoon, not long after Aunt Kat’s detainment, a contingency of people rode into the courtyard. The guardsmen wore the emblem of the Duke of Somerset, and they escorted several gentlemen and a lady, who were admitted to the house at once.
Upstairs in her chamber, Elizabeth read out a passage in Greek, in attempt to drown out the commotion downstairs. Her face was wan, but her voice remained strong.
I stitched in a window embrasure, pretending all my attention was on the fabric. True to our agreement, Elizabeth all but ignored me, deliberately turning a cool eye to me if she needed to give me an order.
One of Elizabeth’s gentlemen ushers entered the room, bowed apologetically, and explained that Sir Robert Tyrwhitt had arrived and requested to speak to her.
“I will receive him when I am finished with my studies,” Elizabeth said coldly. Lines pinched about her eyes, but she resolutely returned to her book. The gentleman withdrew, troubled.
“Tyrwhitt, Tyrwhitt,” Elizabeth said when he’d gone. “I’ve always thought his name sounded like a cheeping bird. Tyrwhitt, Tyrwhitt, ter-woo.”
Her attending ladies laughed, though my throat was too tight join in. So was Elizabeth’s—she put her hand to it and swallowed.
Her haughtiness did not stem entirely from fear. The idea that her governess and financier could be arrested under her nose, with no one informing her about it, had infuriated her. So did the fact that Seymour’s duplicity had been brought to her door.
Elizabeth was well aware that not only had Seymour used her, but that Somerset was now likewise using her to build a case against his brother.
I saw frustration in the set of Elizabeth’s lips, a burning in her eyes as she longed for a day when she was not the pawn on the chessboard.
Elizabeth kept Tyrwhitt kicking his heels for a good long while before she condescended to send for him.
When he arrived in her outer chamber, where she waited, she was every inch a regal princess in crimson damask, while Tyrwhitt, disheveled from his journey, appeared very much an impatient suitor.
Robert Tyrwhitt had been Master of Horse to Catherine Parr when she’d been queen, and he’d obviously used the wealth of that lofty position to grow comfortable and stout.
He had graying hair and a short beard, his eyes small and quick.
His wife, who was the lady I’d seen arrive with him, had also waited upon Catherine.
Lady Tyrwhitt, who had a long and distinguished career of serving Henry’s queens, was nowhere in evidence at the moment. Likely she’d been left downstairs so that she could not soften Elizabeth’s interview with her husband.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, insisted that her ladies stay—including me—at which Tyrwhitt looked pained.
Tyrwhitt continued to stand, as we ladies did, while Elizabeth, who’d risen at Tyrwhitt’s entrance, resumed the chair at her writing table. One of her ladies had turned it to face the room as she stood, so now she seemed to repose on a small throne.
Tyrwhitt cleared his throat. “It ill pleases me to announce such a thing, Your Grace,” he began, a bit pompously.
“But I must tell you that your governess, Mistress Ashley, and the treasurer of your household, Master Thomas Parry, have been detained at his majesty’s pleasure in the Tower of London.
They are being investigated for their part in the improper pursuit of a marriage between yourself and the Lord Admiral. ”
I wanted to crumple to the floor. Aunt Kat in the Tower? I felt sick, but I could do nothing, say nothing, to betray my distress. I was a nobody in the presence of greatness, and I must suppress my anguish.
Elizabeth watched Tyrwhitt coolly, as though trying to decide her answer.
Then she abruptly lifted her hands to her face and started to weep.
Tyrwhitt stared at her in astonishment, as though this had been the last reaction he’d expected. Had he thought to find her lofty and brittle, or perhaps sly and guilty?
He hadn’t had much contact with Elizabeth, despite his role in Catherine’s household, and probably had no idea of her true nature. Perhaps he’d expected a seductress, one who beguiled with coy smiles, like her mother purportedly had done.
Instead, he’d found a straight-backed, no-nonsense young woman, who cried when she learned that her beloved governess was in danger.
“Now then,” Tyrwhitt said, clearly uncomfortable with the tears of a fifteen-year-old girl. Nervously he laid a few sheets of paper on the table next to Elizabeth. I glimpsed a signature at the bottom of one, in Aunt Kat’s handwriting, and went cold.
“Katherine Ashley and Thomas Parry have made their first confessions,” Tyrwhitt said. “They signed their names to the statements. It would be best, Your Grace, to confess all to me straight away, and let this be done with.”
Elizabeth sniffled and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, but the hand that reached for the papers did not tremble. “May I have time to read them?”
Tyrwhitt gave her a thin smile. “Perhaps you will tell me what you know, and then we may read them together.”
Elizabeth withdrew her hand and laid it in her lap, her fingers curling into her palm. “Mistress Ashley is a good woman and would do nothing to deceive my brother the king, or His Grace of Somerset. Or myself.”
Tyrwhitt’s smile became tight as Elizabeth reminded him just who she was—sister of a king and no commoner. He cleared his throat again. “Thomas Parry hints that the Lord Admiral was familiar with you, and Mistress Ashley says nothing to deny it.”
“The Lord Admiral never offered marriage to me, if that is what you mean,” Elizabeth returned. “I never made any sort of pledge to him. I would never agree to marry without the king my brother’s consent, and I trust the Protector believes so.”
The second reminder of her position irritated Tyrwhitt. He huffed. “Do remember, Your Grace, that though your brother is ruler of this realm, you are but a subject.”
“Of course.” Elizabeth’s chilly manner returned. “Which is precisely why I know I may not choose my own husband. The council, the Lord Protector, and my brother must approve. Mistress Ashley knew that very well, and would never advise me otherwise.”
As Tyrwhitt grew even more irate, I again wondered what he’d expected. That Elizabeth would throw herself at his feet and beg for mercy? That she’d confess that she’d conspired against the king? She’d never have admitted such a thing, even if it were true.
I learned much in that room as I watched Elizabeth match wits with Tyrwhitt, a man more than twice her age. He tried to cajole, to be stern, to threaten, and to cajole again, but Elizabeth never wavered.
She repeated multiple times that she had no intention of marrying outside the wishes of the council, and declared that the romps Aunt Kat and Master Parry might have described were nothing more than childish games, which Queen Catherine herself had joined.
As Tyrwhitt lost patience, his words became cruel.
“My wife was in service with your stepmother, as you know. She waited on the Queen Catherine in her last days, was in the bedchamber when she died. The queen, in her delirium, declared that her husband had betrayed her. And Master Parry says you were sent away from the queen’s household. ”
Tyrwhitt snatched one of the papers from the table and read from it.
“One time the Queen, suspecting the often access of the Admiral to the Lady Elizabeth’s grace, came suddenly upon them when they were all alone, he having her in his arms. Wherefore the Queen fell out, both with the Admiral and with Her Grace also. ”
Elizabeth sat as though carved of marble. Any reminder of how she’d hurt Catherine distressed her, and the statement coming from the self-satisfied Tyrwhitt made it doubly upsetting.
“I admit a misunderstanding with the queen,” Elizabeth said in a brittle voice. “But it was cleared up soon after. There was ever great affection between us, as our letters to each other while I stayed at Cheshunt will show.”
Tyrwhitt scowled. “You realize that your governess and treasurer will remain in the Tower until this matter is finished? My wife will now take the place of Mistress Ashley as your governess.”
“I see no reason why she should,” Elizabeth snapped. “Mistress Ashley is innocent, and quite dear to me.”
“Mistress Ashley has revealed your secrets,” Tyrwhitt said with his complacent air. “I wonder that you’d want her near you again. She has betrayed you.”
Elizabeth’s lips tightened. “She has done no such thing.”
Tyrwhitt more or less shoved the papers at Elizabeth. “Right there, in her own words.”
Triumph flared in Elizabeth’s eyes. I realized she’d made Tyrwhitt do as she wished—to let her read the confessions before speaking further.
She skimmed through Master Parry’s statement with a frown and tossed it aside. Her expression softened, however, as she gazed upon Aunt Kat’s words.
Elizabeth read the pages in all seriousness then laid them neatly on the table.
“Mistress Ashley has written here that the Lord Admiral paid me no more attention than he did my cousin Jane, and that my brother’s wishes are what we will follow in matters of marriage.
She is innocent of duplicity, do you see? ”
Tyrwhitt snatched up the confessions, parchment rustling like dry leaves. “Nevertheless, Lady Tyrwhitt and I will remain here,” he said sternly. “I suggest that you think everything over, Your Grace, and speak with me again on the morrow.”
Elizabeth sent him a frosty nod and a little gesture of dismissal. I suppressed my glee when Tyrwhitt bowed and departed the chamber as though he were the accused and she the interrogator.
As soon as his footsteps faded, however, Elizabeth put her hand to her forehead and moaned that her head was splitting in two.
I and her maids put her to bed where Elizabeth remained, ill and unable to rise, for the next several days.