“It comes from the river.”
“We dread the hot days,” said John.
“I will speak to the servants. They must take great care to keep the apartments sweet. This is not a good place to be in … especially during the summer.”
Robert was determined to drive away gloom. He was sure, he told her, that soon they would be free. He guessed it. He knew it. He had a way of knowing such things.
She could smile as she listened to Robert.
“How glad I am, dear John, that your brother is with you.”
“It has been merrier since he came,” said John.
And when Jane left them she felt happier than she had since she had lost them. That was due to her darling.
He can charm away even my miseries, she was thinking.
Amy came to see Robert. John asked that he should be taken to another cell, that husband and wife might be alone together.
Amy clung to Robert, covering his face with kisses. He returned her embrace and for a short while he was ready to make love to her. It was so long since they had met.
“Robert,” she insisted, “you still love me?”
“Have I not made that clear?”
“I have been so unhappy …”
“And what have I been, do you think?”
“But it has been so miserable without you. I thought that you would die.”
“Nay. I have many years before me.”
“Yes, Robert, yes. Do you think you will soon be free?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“But you do not seem to care.”
He was thoughtful for a second or so. He was thinking of freedom, the return to the life in Norfolk, farming, riding, making love to Amy. Was freedom so desirable? How foolish Amy was! He had a fancy for a different woman—a sharper-tongued, subtler woman, with flaming red hair and an imperious manner. He wanted a Princess, not a country girl.
“Of what do you think?” she asked suspiciously.
Had she sensed his desire for another woman? he wondered. Had she more discernment than he gave her credit for?
He said: “I have been thinking that if I had not married you I might not be here now.”
“Where would you be then?”
“In my grave.”
She stared at him for a moment, then she threw her arms about him. “Why, Robert, I am some use to you then.”
He laughed aloud because the sun was shining outside and it was good to be alive. He lifted her and kissed her with that sudden abandonment which was a way of his.
Now he was the passionate lover as he had been in the beginning, and when he was thus he was quite irresistible.
Amy was happy. She was with him again. He loved her; he was glad they had married.
She did not know that the memory of a Princess was constantly with him and that his thoughts of her filled him with a delightful blend of excitement, desire, and ambition.
The days were hot and sultry. The smell of the befouled river pervaded the cell. The sweating sickness had come to London, and the most dangerous place in the City was the Tower.
Day after day the corpses were taken out, but the place was still overcrowded, as it had been since the Wyatt rebellion. The heat hung over the river and the prisoners lay languid.
One morning John complained of feeling very sick indeed. Robert looked anxiously at his brother. The Earl’s face was a sickly yellow color and, to his horror, Robert saw the drops of sweat forming on his brow.
John had contracted the dreaded sweating sickness.
Five of Robert’s brothers and sisters had died of this terrible disease. He wondered: Is John to be another?
But he determined that it should not be so. He would not lose John that way. Here was something to be done after weeks of inactivity, and he was glad of it.
He called to their two servants. They came running in.
“The Earl is sick,” he said; and he saw the terrible fear in their faces. He felt reckless; in spite of his anxiety for his brother he almost laughed. He was not afraid. He knew that he would not die miserably in prison of the sweat. He would do his utmost to save his brother; he would be the one who was constantly with him, ministering to him, because he felt himself to be immune from infection. For greatness, he was sure, awaited Robert Dudley.
It was a glorious feeling to be unafraid among the fearful.
He said coolly: “Go at once to my mother. Tell her what has happened. Ask her to send some of her simples to me. Tell her she is not to come visiting until I send the word. Be very sure of that.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Already they were looking at him as though he were a god.
He returned to his brother and, lifting him in his arms, he carried him to his bed and covered him up. He sat beside him and, when the palliatives arrived from his mother, he himself administered them.
He talked to John, trying to arouse him. It was said that if the patient did not come out of his coma during the first twenty-four hours he would die.
Robert often wondered afterward how he lived through that day and night; he himself must have been almost delirious.
He found he was speaking his thoughts aloud. “The Princess Elizabeth is in love with me. Bars separated us and I could not approach her, yet was I assured of her love. If ever she becomes Queen, greatness awaits me … greatness such as our father never knew … the greatness he would have had for Guildford if all had gone as our father wished. I think of our grandfather—humble lawyer, a farmer’s son who rose to sit in the Council chamber of a King. I think of our father who became Protector of England—almost the King he wished Guildford to be. In two generations from obscurity to greatness … only to die on the scaffold. I am of the third generation. I shall learn from the mistakes of others. Perhaps in the third generation a Dudley shall be a king.”
Yes, he must be almost delirious to speak such thoughts aloud.
John opened his eyes suddenly and said: “Brother, is that you?”
Then Robert knew that he had successfully nursed John through the sweating sickness, and he was certain that the sickness could not touch him. He was as certain of this as he was of the glorious future which awaited him.
There were many Spaniards at the Court that summer. None could find so much favor with the Queen as a Spaniard. Her bridegroom had come and she doted on him.
Jane Dudley—although she could not go to Court, was often found outside the palaces in which the Queen was residing.
She pleaded with old friends. She gave gifts to the Spanish ladies. She would tell them of the fate of her sons. Would not this kind lady, that kind gentleman, seek a moment, when the Queen was in a soft mood, to speak a word for poor Jane Dudley?
There were many who felt pity for her; and so those words were eventually spoken to the Queen.
Mary loved her husband, and love had softened her.
“Poor Jane Dudley,” she said, “what has she done to suffer so?”
Jane was a heartbroken mother, and now that Mary soon hoped to be a mother, she understood maternal hopes and griefs. Jane’s sons had risen against the crown, but they had obeyed their father in this. Mary in love was a kindly Mary.
As the hot summer gave place to autumn she decided she would pardon the Dudleys. They would still be attainted of high treason, of course, which meant that their lands and goods would not be restored to them; but they should have a free pardon.
Jane was almost delirious with delight.
At last her sons were to be free. Land and riches? What did they want with those? Let them live quietly, humbly; let them abandon their ambition which had proved so fatal to the family.
But Jane’s joy was clouded. His imprisonment in the Tower had changed her eldest son John from a strong man to a weakling. He died a few days after his release.
Of Jane’s thirteen children only five were left to her. Yet even while she wept for John she thanked God that Ambrose and Robert (and in particular Robert, for even the fondest mothers must have their favorites) had come safely through the ordeal.