Queen of This Realm - Plaidy Jean. Страница 53

“Does that matter?”

Oh Robert, I thought, you have a lot to learn of the people and me.

“I must be beyond reproach in such matters,” I said. “There must be no suspicion attached to me.”

“I will defend you.”

“Your main concern will be to defend yourself,” I said sharply. “You are the one who will stand on trial for this.”

“On trial?”

“Oh, we do not know what the outcome will be, but we must be prepared.”

“You are the Queen.”

“A queen might not survive through such a storm as this could raise.”

“Your father killed two of his wives and was still loved by the people.”

“The circumstances are different. They were accused of treason and the axeman killed them. This is the removal of a woman who, many will say, stood in your way.”

“Never fear. We shall come through this and then… there is no obstacle.”

He would have embraced me but I held him off. He did not see the change in me, but it had come. Never again would I risk my throne for the sake of a man. In future I should think first of the Queen.

“Lord Robert Dudley,” I said, “I am placing you under arrest.”

He stared at me incredulously.

“Yes, Robert,” I said. “There will be many questions to be answered and until they are satisfactorily dealt with, you cannot remain at Court. You must see that. Go to your house at Kew. Stay there. You will be confined to that house on the Queen's orders.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, “I see that, as always, you are right. I will go to Kew. I will stay there and I know that we can arrange this matter satisfactorily and when it is settled…”

No, Robert, I thought, it can never be now, for whatever the verdict you are able to bring about, suspicion will always be there and never must a finger be pointed at the Queen with the suggestion that she had a hand in the murder of her lover's wife.

First it must be seen that he was under house arrest.

So he left with the guards and I knew that in spite of my previous frivolity, I was now acting like a queen.

IN MOMENTS OF DANGER William Cecil showed himself as the cool, wise counselor he was. He was deeply disturbed by the death of Lady Dudley.

He talked to me very gravely and I was glad that he approved of my action in confining Robert to Kew.

He discussed at length the danger in which I had been placed.

“There will have to be an inquiry and the servants at Cumnor Place will all have to give evidence. Whether they will be in favor of Lord Robert who can say? But doubtless Lord Robert will know how to act.”

“Do you mean he will be able to force his servants to say what he expects them to?”

“They are his servants. It is his affair. Your Majesty, your crown could be at stake. A verdict of accidental death must be brought in.”

“Will the people believe it?”

“There will always be some who do not. But that is inevitable. If a jury brings in a verdict of accidental death that will have to be publicly accepted. There are certain to be those who will believe Lord Robert guilty of murder… and Your Majesty with him.”

“That is impossible. I knew nothing of the woman.”

“The people believe that you wish to marry Lord Robert and Lady Amy was in the way.”

“I am innocent,” I said. “I know nothing of her death. Is the end of one countrywoman so very important?”

“Of the utmost importance. The people will accept political killings— even those such as occurred in your sister's reign. There is usually an excuse for them which people understand…or some do. No one will tolerate the murder of a wife by her husband in order that he may marry another woman. We must at all costs stop a charge of murder. Anything is better than that, because if it were proved to be murder, Your Majesty would be implicated. You must face the fact that your hold on the crown is not as firm as we should like it to be. Until now the people have shown their love for you in no small way, but a scandal of such magnitude could alter that. There is Mary Queen of Scots across the water, with the French King—and now possibly with Spanish help—ready to put her on the throne. And even nearer home there is the Lady Katharine Grey whose sister was queen for nine days, and she, too, is the great-granddaughter of your grandfather Henry VII. Your Majesty must walk warily.”

“I know it well, and I know too, good Master Cecil, that I can rely on your wisdom.”

He nodded. “It is well that Lord Robert has been sent away from Court. We must ridicule all suggestions of murder. The verdict shall be accidental death; and Lord Robert must remain at Kew until we have the right verdict. In the meantime I will call on him there, which will show the people that I regard him as my good friend who cannot be anything but innocent, and show that his stay at Kew is by no means an arrest but merely undertaken in view of the delicacy of the situation. It will show that he himself feels it better to remain there until his name is completely cleared of this absurd suspicion.”

“I thank you, Cecil. We shall come through this, and then we shall tread with especial care.”

I LIVED IN a state of nervous tension awaiting the verdict of the coroner's jury. I knew that the country was aghast and that there was strong suspicion of Robert which included me. My enemies, of course, were making the most of the scandal. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who was now my Ambassador in France, wrote to Cecil to tell him that the Queen of Scots had laughed aloud when she heard the story and said for all to hear: “So the Queen of England is going to marry her horsemaster who has killed his wife to make room for her.”

How dared she! The foolish pampered creature! I disliked her intensely, not only because she claimed my throne and was unquestionably legitimate but because the people at the Court of France were constantly singing of her exceptional beauty and grace, which, I told myself spitefully, was no doubt because now that Henri Deux had died so suddenly, she and her little Franois were Queen and King of France.

Our ambassadors reported from every country that it was the general opinion that Robert had murdered his wife in order to marry me. They sent strong advice that there should be no marriage with Robert.

They need not have worried. I, too, had made up my mind about that.

Robert, determined that at the coroner's court there should be a verdict of accidental death, had taken the precaution of sending a distant kinsman, Thomas Blount, down to Cumnor Place to brief the servants so that they should be aware of what their master expected of them. He knew Thomas Blount would do his utmost for, being a poor relation, he had everything to win through Robert. If Robert were to fail, he would fail with him. Such men make good servants.

Blount evidently did his work well and everyone who had been in the house on that fatal day was primed in what he or she must say. Most of them had been away from the house when the accident happened because the annual fair had come to the neighborhood and they had all wanted to attend it.

Lady Dudley had stayed behind. I thought of her in that house alone. Had she had any premonition? She could not have been ignorant of the rumors. They abounded. How would a lonely woman feel when her husband was paying court to another woman and there had been rumors that he was plotting her death?

Why had she allowed them all to go to the fair, leaving her alone in the house? That seemed to point to suicide. But would a woman who wished to kill herself choose such a method? How could she be certain of death? The same applied to murder—unless of course the victim was killed by some other means and thrown down the staircase to make it appear she had fallen down and, doing so, died.

There must be some explanation. I wished that I knew it. Or did I? Did I really want to know what had happened in that quiet house on that day when almost everybody had gone to the fair and Amy Robsart was alone?