I wait till the nightime, though the court is so joyous and carefree in this summer season that Elizabeth does not go to her bed till nearly midnight. But when it is finally quiet and the servants are sleeping on the trestle tables in the great hall of the townsman’s house, or wrapped in their cloaks at his great fireside, I leave Jo snoring on my pillow, Mr. Nozzle beside her, and the cat in his basket, and I creep to the St. Loe rooms, tap on the door, and when I hear Aunt Bess say: “Who is it?” I tiptoe in.
She is sitting up in bed in a nightgown, reading her Bible by candlelight, a nightcap tied under her chin. Thank God, she sleeps alone. If she had a companion, I could not have said a word. Her husband has gone ahead of the court. He is the captain of the queen’s guard and chief butler, and he has to make sure that the next night’s dwelling exceeds Elizabeth’s demanding standards. So Bess, a wife of only two years, is parted from her husband so that Elizabeth can be with her lover in the greatest luxury that Sir William St. Loe can organize. So do we all run around her, this difficult queen, as if she had not been raised in a little house, glad of hand-me-down clothes, with no name or title or friends.
“Who is it?” Bess asks, and then when she sees me, she smiles: “Oh, Katherine, my dear. What is it? Are you unwell?”
I close the door behind me and I go to the bedside.
“Aunt Bess . . .” I begin, and then I think, I cannot say anything. I cannot tell her anything. I cannot bring myself to say a word.
“What is it, Katherine? What is it, dear?” she asks. She looks concerned. I think, if I had a mother who looked at me like that, I would be able to tell her anything.
“I . . . I . . .”
Her gaze narrows. “What?” she demands. “Are you in trouble?”
In answer, I part the heavy folds of my night robe. Underneath it, my white linen nightgown clings to my plumper breasts, my swollen waist. She can see the unmistakable curve of my swollen belly, the little pronounced dimple of the button of my belly, which has popped out despite my strapping myself down.
She claps both her hands over her mouth, and above her fingers her brown eyes widen in a silent scream.
“Good God, what have you done?” she whispers.
“I am married,” I say desperately.
“What? To Henry Herbert?”
“No, no, I only promised him when I was desperate, but he knows about this.”
“Good God!”
“I am married to Ned Seymour.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. But he has gone away and does not write to me.”
“He denies the marriage?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Does he know of this?”
“I don’t know. We weren’t sure. Janey knew.”
“What good is that to anyone?” Lady Bess demands furiously. “She’s dead and he’s missing. Does anyone else know? William Cecil?”
“No, no, I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell Lady Clinton either, and I—”
“Why the hell tell me?” she hisses, her hands still at her face. “Why the hell would you come and tell me?”
“I thought you would help me?”
“Never!” she says flatly.
“But, Lady St. Loe—my mother—your old friendship? You promised me . . .”
“I loved your mother and she was good to me when I married my second husband at your house, and then again when I married my third. Note that, child: married. Publicly married. She would kill you rather than see you in this state and no husband to be found. She would not ask me to help you; she would bundle you out of court to somewhere in the country and pray to God that the baby is stillborn and that you can hide your shame.”
“Lady Bess . . .”
“I don’t have credit,” she says as flatly as a Genoese banker refusing a loan. “I don’t have credit to carry you through this. Nobody does. Nobody has enough. You’ll have to go away.”
“I don’t want money . . .”
“You do,” she says. “Desperately. And a home, and a husband, and a sponsor to explain it to the queen. I have none of these for you, and if I did, I am not sure that I would extend all the credit I have in the world, for a stupid, stupid girl like you.”
I start to cry, weakly. “But I have nowhere to go . . .” I did not dream that she would be angry with me. “Where can I go? Aunt Bess, please! Don’t you have somewhere that I can go? Can’t I go to your house?”
Again she slaps her hand over her mouth to stifle the scream. “A Tudor heir born in my house? A child half Tudor and half Seymour? Don’t you know that she will see that as a plot? No! No! Don’t you hear what I am saying? Elizabeth would throw me out of the court if she even knew we had been speaking, if she even knew that I know of this. Go. Go now, and don’t tell anyone that you have spoken to me, for I will simply deny it.”
“But what am I to do?” I demand of her.
The shadows leap and fall on her frightened face as she reaches for her bedside candle. “Go and hide somewhere, have the child, give it away—throw it away if you have to—and come back to court pretending that it never happened,” she counsels. “And never tell anyone that you spoke to me. And be sure that I will never confess it.”
“Dear Aunt Bess, I beg you! Please don’t blow out the candle!”
There is a puff and the room is in darkness.
Incredulously, I stand in the dark, and then I stumble towards the door.
I go to my bed but I don’t sleep. The baby has shifted again, I think it has dropped lower, for the swell of my belly is not so high. I think for a moment that perhaps it has died and is shrinking and that this might be the best thing for me. But then it squirms and kicks against me so strongly that I cannot pretend for even a moment that it is dead.
Besides, I have a sudden rush of love for the poor little thing. I don’t want it dead. I can’t wish it dead. When Lady St. Loe said I should hope for a stillbirth, I thought her a monster. I thought she was beyond cruel. I will not give this poor little being away. I would not dream of putting a pillow over its little face and throwing it into a ditch. I will remember the puff of the candle and the darkness till I die. How could she? But there is no point in crying about Lady Bess when I have to think what I can do and where I can go.
I wipe my eyes and sit up in my bed. I have to do something at once: the pain is like a vise gripping my belly; something must be happening. Although Aunt Bess was clear that she would do nothing for me, she has given me an idea—I should get away from court and give birth to this child in secret, perhaps leave him with a kindly family and return to court. When Ned comes home, if he ever comes home, and if he still loves me, if all this has been a terrible mistake, then we can ask for permission to marry, announce that we are husband and wife, and produce the baby, the new heir to the throne.
Robert Dudley at least would be glad of that. It would give Elizabeth a male heir that she can nominate for the throne; it would leave her free to marry him. William Cecil would be happy to have a Protestant heir in the cradle. But I have to find somewhere to go into confinement where my secret will be safe.