Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

He shot a quick, sympathetic glance at Cecil. “My Lord Secretary has worked hard in your service and brought home the best peace that he could. We may be disappointed in what he has achieved, but I am sure there is no question of his loyalty to our cause and his devotion to our service.”

Cecil saw how his words, his very tone quietened her temper. He says “our” service? he remarked to himself. Am I serving him now?

“Let us withdraw with the Lord Secretary,” Dudley suggested. “And he can explain his decisions, and tell us how matters are in Scotland. He has had a long journey and an arduous task.”

She bridled; Cecil braced himself for more abuse.

“Come,” Dudley said simply, stretching out his hand to her. “Come, Elizabeth.”

He commands her by name before the whole court? Cecil demanded of himself in stunned silence.

But Elizabeth went to him, like a well-trained hound running in to heel, put her hand in his, and let him lead her from the hall. Dudley glanced back to Cecil and allowed himself the smallest smile. Yes, the smile said. Now you see how things are.

William Hyde summoned his sister to his office, the room where he transacted the business of his estate, a signal to her that the matter was a serious one and not to be confused by emotions or the claims of family ties.

He was seated behind the great rent table, which was circular and sectioned with drawers, each bearing a letter of the alphabet. The table could turn on its axis toward the landlord and each drawer had the contracts and rent books of the tenant farmers, filed under the initial letter of their name.

Lizzie Oddingsell remarked idly that the drawer marked “Z” had never been used, and wondered that no one thought to make a table which was missing the “X” and the “Z,” since these must be uncommon initial letters in English. Zebidee, she thought to herself. Xerxes.

“Sister, it is about Lady Dudley,” William Hyde started without preamble.

She noticed at once his use of titles for her and for her friend. So they were to conduct this conversation on the most formal footing.

“Yes, brother?” she replied politely.

“This is a difficult matter,” he said. “But to be blunt, I think it is time that you took her away.”

“Away?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Away to where?”

“To some other friends.”

“His lordship has made no arrangements,” she demurred.

“Have you heard from him at all?”

“Not since…” She broke off. “Not since he visited her in Norfolk.”

He raised his eyebrows, and waited.

“In March,” she added reluctantly.

“When she refused him a divorce and they parted in anger?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“And since then you have had no letter? And neither has she?”

“Not that I know of…”She met his accusing look. “No, she has not.”

“Is her allowance being paid?”

Lizzie gave a little gasp of shock. “Yes, of course.”

“And your wages?”

“I am not waged,” she said with dignity. “I am a companion, not a servant.”

“Yes; but he is paying your allowance.”

“His steward sends it.”

“He has not quite cut her off then,” he said thoughtfully.

“He quite often fails to write,” she said stoutly. “He quite often does not visit. In the past it has sometimes been months…”

“He never fails to send his men to escort her from one friend to another,” he rejoined. “He never fails to arrange for her to stay at once place or another. And you say he has sent no one, and you have heard nothing since March.”

She nodded.

“Sister, you must take her and move on,” he said firmly.

“Why?”

“Because she is becoming an embarrassment to this house.”

Lizzie was quite bewildered. “Why? What has she done?”

“Leaving aside her excessive piety, which makes one wonder as to her conscience—”

“For God’s sake, brother, she is clinging to God as to life itself. She has no guilty conscience, she is just trying to find the will to live!”

He raised his hand. “Elizabeth, please. Let us stay calm.”

“I don’t know how to stay calm when you call this unhappy woman an embarrassment to you!”

He rose to his feet. “I will not have this conversation unless you promise me that you will stay calm.”

She took a deep breath. “I know what you are doing.”

“What?”

“You are trying not to be touched by her. But she is in the most unhappy position, and you would make it worse.”

He moved toward the door as if to hold it open for her. Lizzie recognized the signs of her brother’s determination. “All right,” she said hastily. “All right, William. There is no need to be fierce with me. It is as bad for me as it is for you. Worse, actually.”

He returned to his seat. “Leaving aside her piety, as I said, it is the position she puts us in with her husband that concerns me.”

She waited.

“She has to go,” he said simply. “While I thought we were doing him a favor by having her here, protecting her from slander and scorn, awaiting his instructions, she was an asset to us. I thought he would be glad that she had found safe haven. I thought he would be grateful to me. But now I think different.”

She raised her head to look at him. He was her younger brother and she was accustomed to seeing him in two contradictory lights: one as her junior, who knew less of the world than she did; and the other as her superior: the head of the family, a man of property, a step above her on the chain that led to God.

“And what do you think now, brother?”

“I think he has cast her off,” he said simply. “I think she has refused his wish, and angered him, and she will not see him again. And, what is more important, whoever she stays with, will not see him again. We are not helping him with a knotty problem, we are aiding and abetting her rebellion against him. And I cannot be seen to do such a thing.”

“She is his wife,” Lizzie said flatly. “And she has done nothing wrong. She is not rebelling, she is just refusing to be cast aside.”

“I can’t help that,” David said. “He is now living as husband in all but name to the Queen of England. Lady Dudley is an obstacle to their happiness. I will not be head of a household where the obstacle to the happiness of the Queen of England finds refuge.”

There was nothing she could say to fault his logic and he had forbidden her to appeal to his heart. “But what is she to do?”

“She has to go to another house.”

“And then what?”

“To another, and to another, and to another, until she can agree with Sir Robert and make some settlement, and find a permanent home.”

“You mean until she is forced into a divorce and goes to some foreign convent, or until she dies of heartbreak.”

He sighed. “Sister, there is no need to play a tragedy out of this.”

She faced him. “I am not playing a tragedy. This is tragic.”

“This is not my fault!” he exclaimed in sudden impatience. “There is no need to blame me for this. I am stuck with the difficulty but it is none of my making!”

“Whose fault is it then?” she demanded.

He said the cruelest thing: “Hers. And so she has to leave.”

Cecil had three meetings with Elizabeth before she could be brought even to listen to him without interrupting and raging at him. The first two were with Dudley and a couple of other men in attendance, and Cecil had to bow his head while she tore into him, complained of his inattention to her business, of his neglect of his country, of his disregard for their pride, their rights, their finances. After the first meeting he did not try to defend himself, but wondered whose voice it was that came so shrill, from the queen’s reproachful mouth.