“There is none other whose mercy I would ask. I crave the mercy of a smile from your sweet lips. The memory of your beauty will stay with me … lighting my cell. If I die tomorrow I shall die happy … because you came to see me, my dearest Princess.”
“I but passed this way.”
“Then Your Grace is displeased because I wrote to you?”
“It was somewhat impertinent of you.”
“Then if my letters have given you displeasure, I must deny myself the great joy of writing them.”
“As to that you must please yourself.”
“If I pleased myself I should write all day. You will come this way again?”
“My lord, do you think I shall go out of my way to avoid you?” There was a trill of excitement in her voice. She knew she ought to go, but she could not resist lingering there.
“To see you is the most wonderful thing that has happened to me,” he said.
“I must go.”
“I shall live for this hour tomorrow.”
“My guards grow suspicious. I must tarry no longer.”
“Would I could kiss your hand … Elizabeth.”
“I dare stay no longer.”
“I shall wait … and hope.”
“It is a good thing to wait … and hope. It is all that is left to us poor prisoners.”
She had turned her face to the sky so that the light fell upon it; she shook out her hair and touched her throat with one of those white slender hands of which she was so proud. She made a charming picture for him to see and retain in his memory.
“You are so beautiful,” she heard him whisper. “Even more so than I remembered.”
Did they know, those guards and friends of hers, why her morning walks always took her in one direction? Did they know who the prisoner was on the other side of the grille? If they did they feigned ignorance.
She would sit on the grass outside the cell and, leaning back against the walls, look up at the sky while she talked to Robert Dudley.
She scolded him, but there was a warmth of tenderness always beneath the scolding. She was as excited as she had been during that most exciting experience with Thomas Seymour.
“So, Robert Dudley, you are a traitor to our most gracious Queen.”
“Princess, I serve only one Queen.”
“Then that must be Queen Mary.”
“Nay, the Queen of my heart, the Queen I shall always worship to the end of my days. Her name is not Mary.”
“Might it be Amy?”
“Ah, speak not of poor Amy.”
“Speak not of her indeed! Poor soul, I pity her. She happens to be your wife.”
“I spoke of a Queen,” he said. “I spoke of the only one in the world whom I could ever love, but who, I fear, is far beyond my reach.”
“What name has she?”
“Elizabeth.”
“The same as mine!”
“You mock me!”
“Robert, you are a philanderer, as many know to their cost.”
“If that is so, might it not be because, knowing I can never reach my love, I seek desperately to find others who remind me of her?”
“So these others … these country girls … remind you of her?”
“In some small way, mayhap. Perhaps one has blue eyes; another has hair—not the same color, for how could that perfection be matched?—but perhaps when the sun shines in a certain way that hair has a faint resemblance to Elizabeth’s. Perhaps one has white and slender fingers, lacking the perfection, it is true, but they serve to remind.”
“Robert Dudley,” she challenged, “a woman would be a fool to put her trust in you.”
“One would not. But who am I to hope she would dare look my way?”
“You are under sentence of death,” she said quietly.
“I am almost glad of it. Because of it I am reckless. I say to the one I love that which, in other circumstances, I would not dare to say.”
“Say on,” she murmured.
“I love you … no one but you. There would be no place in my life except by your side. It is well that soon they will come for me and that I shall walk out to the scaffold, for, loving one so far above me, how could I hope for that love to be returned?”
“A man is a fool who gives up hope.”
“Is that so then?”
“Hope is what we live by … such as we are.”
“What could I hope for?”
“For life.”
“But what would life be worth if it held not love?”
“Then hope for life and love.”
“Elizabeth … my love!”
“It is true,” she admitted, “that I have a fondness for you.”
“I am the happiest man alive.”
“It is a marvelous thing, Robert, that you can say so at such a time.”
“Would I could be there beside you on the grass.”
“I fancy that you would be over-bold, which might mean that I should have to be cold to you.”
“I would break through your coldness.”
“Yes. I have heard that you have melting powers.”
“You have heard much of me. I am flattered again that you lent your ears so often to news of me … even when it went against me.”
“I did not forget you. You were such an arrogant boy.”
“You remember how we danced together … how our hands touched?”
“Do not talk of the past. Talk of the future.”
“What has the future for me?”
“Or for me?”
“You! There will be a great future for you. You will be a Queen.”
“Shall I, Robert?”
“A Queen! And your husband will be a foreign prince of great power and riches. Your ministers will choose him for you.”
“If I am ever Queen I shall choose my own husband.”
Such words set his hopes rising. Such hopes were absurd, he told himself. But were they? She was so proud, so brave, so determined. She was her father’s daughter; he had heard it said many times. Her father had married outside royalty. It was true that two of his wives had lost their heads; but Robert was sure of his powers.
“If ever I come out of here alive …” he began.
“Yes, Robert?” she prompted.
“I shall dedicate my life to your service.”
“Others have promised that.”
“I shall serve you with the love of a subject and … a man.”
“Subject?”
“When you are Queen …”
“You talk treason. If any heard, that would, without delay, cost you your head.”
“My heart is so deeply involved that my head seems of little importance.”
“I dare stay no longer.”
Yet how she wanted to do so! What a pleasant game it was that she played outside the walls of the Beauchamp Tower.
It was one of the children who broke the enchantment.
Little Susannah came to her one day as she walked in the gardens.
Susannah had found some keys, and these she had brought to the Princess. The little girl had listened to the conversations of her elders and had thought how she would like to do something for the sweet young lady. Young Will took her flowers, and those pleased her so much. What could Susannah do?
Then Susannah thought of something better than flowers. The Princess was a prisoner, was she not? Flowers were pretty to look at, but keys were so much more useful. So purposefully Susannah took the keys to the Princess, holding them out in her small chubby hand.
“These are for you, Mistress. Now you can unlock the gates and go home.”
Elizabeth bent over the child, but her guards had come forward.
“Your Grace will understand,” said one of the guards, “that I must take these keys, and that it will be necessary for me to report what has happened.”
“You may do as you please,” said Elizabeth. “This innocent child but plays a game.”
Susannah cried: “But the keys are for the lady. They are so that she may open the gates and go home.”