I want to say smartly: “Well, she gives little sign of her love.” Or I want to ask: “Does she love me enough to allow me to be happy? Or does she only love me so much that she keeps me on this rack of uncertainty?”
For though everyone knows I am the heir she still does not name me as such in an act of parliament, and now that Mary Queen of Scots has announced that she is coming back to Scotland, many people are saying that Elizabeth should name her as the heir and so make peace with her and with Scotland and France.
“Your friend Ned is well received in Paris and he writes to me that Queen Mary of Scotland will not ratify the peace treaty and insists on returning to Scotland, upholding her claims against the English throne,” William Cecil tells me. “He has been a great intelligencer in the court of France for me. He has been greeted like a prince. He and my son Thomas have met everyone who matters in France, and Ned has told me much that I didn’t know about the secrets of the court.”
“And when are they coming home?” I try to make my voice as light and as casual as I can.
“Soon, I hope. I have never known two young men to spend more money,” Cecil says, telling me nothing.
I have to know that he is coming soon. I write to him, and when I get no reply, I worry that he has forgotten his promises to me, that he is in love with someone else. I order that the servant Glynne is to be admitted to my rooms the moment that he arrives, but he never comes. I write again to Ned to tell him that still I know nothing for sure, but my queasiness has got better and this makes me think that I imagined it, and it meant nothing. He does not reply to that letter either. I have not had another course and certainly, I am fatter. I tie my stomacher more and more loosely and I swear that the curve of my belly gets greater every day. But I cannot believe that there is a baby in there. It seems like months and months since Ned lay with me and ran his covetous hand down my sleek flanks. It is half a year; for sure it has been so long that I cannot believe that there is a baby, yet I cannot stop myself fearing that there is.
My lady-in-waiting, Mrs. Leigh, remarks upon my bigger breasts and my thicker waist, and I ask her how a woman knows that she is with child, and how soon a baby comes after a wedding night. She is so appalled that she frightens me, shock makes her eyes bulge and she whispers: “My lady! For shame! My lady!”
I swear her to secrecy. She has been my lady-in-waiting for years; she should know that I would never be dishonored. I tell her that I am a married woman and I show her my ring and my wife’s kerchief. I tell her that I have Ned’s letter of proposal safely in my jewel box, and his will in which he names me as his wife. I explain that the baby will be the next heir to the throne and she tells me that a woman can count how long it takes. She says it is ten months from your last course, and I will be able to tell if it is a boy or a girl by how it lies in the belly, and whether I crave sweet things or salt. If I feel seasick in the first months, the baby will not die at sea. If I put away my kittens from my rooms, he will be an honorable man. I think half of this must be nonsense, but it is all the help I have to hand.
I have to count on her to help me. She can work out with me when the baby would be born, if there is a baby there at all; she can help to hide my sickness. She tells me that there will be no difficulty in that, but right now, her sister is ill at home and they need her there. I give her leave to go for a week to help with the haymaking, and then she simply vanishes.
Like that! She never comes back to me, though she has been in my service for years, and this makes me realize that I am in very great trouble indeed. If Mrs. Leigh leaves me without warning, runs away from the court and profitable service because of my secret, then it must be a dangerous burden. I would have paid her a fortune to stay with me and help me—I would have given her all of Ned’s purse of gold—but she would rather be far away. She must think me either horribly shamed or truly endangered, and either way she wants nothing to do with me, and I am all on my own once again.
If only I had someone to help me decide what I should do! I write again to Ned under cover of the English ambassador at Paris, though I don’t even know if he is still at Paris. I tell him that the linnets are well and that Jo the pug is comically faithful to me, as if she knows I need a friend. She has started sleeping on my bed, and I cannot stir without her coming to sniff my face. I tell him that the queen and Robert Dudley are as man and wife in the first dizzy months of marriage. I tell him that Mrs. Leigh has run away and I have no one to advise me. I say that I don’t know for sure what condition I am in, but that I would be so much happier if he were here. I don’t want to sound pitiful, as if I am pleading for him to come home, but I really feel that I am alone with my worry and without a husband; and now I need him so much.
I get no reply.
I know that there are dozens of reasons why he should not reply, but of course I fear that he has forgotten me or fallen in love with one of the French papists. What if the beautiful Dowager Queen Mary has taken a fancy to him and will take him to Scotland as her king consort, and I will never see him in London again? I write again, and though I wait and wait, there is no answer.
“My boy and your friend Ned Hertford are going on to Italy,” William Cecil remarks to me, as if it is pleasant news. “Unless we summon them home. What do you think, Lady Katherine? Shall we tell them to come back and leave their amusements?”
I want to say: command him to come! Instead, I look at the bows on my shoes over the smooth line of my stomacher, and I feel my itchy belly squeezed tightly against the boning. “Oh, tell them to enjoy themselves!” I say generously. “We are all happy here, are we not?”
William Cecil is not happy here. I can tell by the deep groove between his eyebrows, by the way that he sounds as if he is lying when he joins the lighthearted chatter of the court. He fears the coming of Mary Queen of Scots to her kingdom. He fears that Elizabeth, a queen, is planning to hand her throne on to another queen, as if there had been no Adam made in Eden, as if women can name their heirs, as if their heirs should be women. He hates the idea of a papist heir to England—it will overthrow his life’s work of bringing England to peace as a Protestant kingdom—but Elizabeth is entranced by the thought of her beautiful cousin so near to her. Cecil suspects that Queen Mary of Scots—or any papist—is his enemy in religion, determined to reverse his life’s work. But he knows he has reached the limit of his power. He cannot persuade the queen to think of her cousin Mary as an enemy. He cannot persuade her to marry a suitable suitor. He cannot force her to be with child. She will not give the country a son. And I am so afraid that I will. I am so afraid that I am about to give the country a royal son and heir, and nobody knows but me. And I am not sure.
For a moment, I almost think I can tell him the truth. He keeps me from the other ladies with a gentle hand on my arm. “Shall we send for the Earl of Hertford?” he asks me gently. “Do you need him home, Lady Katherine?”