Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Then, one day in early summer, a messenger came from London, with a bundle of business for Elizabeth and a letter for me. It was addressed to ‘Hannah Green, with Lady Elizabeth at the Tower of London’, and it was not a hand that I recognised.

      Dear Hannah,

      This is to tell you that your father is safely arrived in Calais. We have rented a house and a shop and he is buying and selling books and papers. My mother is keeping house for him and my sisters are working, one at a milliner’s, one for a glover and one as a housekeeper. I am working for a surgeon, which is hard work but he is a skilled man and I am learning much from him.

      I am sorry that you did not come with us, and I am sorry that I spoke to you in such a way that did not convince you. You find me abrupt and perhaps demanding. You must remember that I have been the head of my family for some time now and I am accustomed to my sisters and my mother doing as they are bid. You have been the indulged daughter of two parents and are used to having your own way. Your later life gave you dangerous experiences of the world and now you are quite without a master. I understand that you will not do as I command, I understand that you do not see why I should command. It is unmaidenly; but it is the truth of you.

      Let me try to be clear with you. I cannot become a cat’s-paw. I cannot do as you desire and set you up as the master of our home. I have to be man and master at my own bed and board and I cannot imagine any other way, and I believe that I should not imagine any other way. God has given me the rule of your sex. It is up to me to apply that rule with compassion and kindness and to protect you from your mistakes and from mine own. But I am ordained to be your master. I cannot hand over the mastery of our family; it is my duty and responsibility, it cannot be yours.

      Let me try to make you an offer. I will be a good husband to you. You can ask my sisters – I do not have an ill-kept temper, I am not a man of moods. I have never raised my hand to any of them, I am always kind to them. I can find it in me to be kind to you, far kinder than you imagine at the moment, I think. Indeed, I want to be kind to you, Hannah.

      To be brief, I regret that I released you from our betrothal and this letter is to ask you to promise yourself to me once more. I wish to marry you, Hannah.

      I think about you all of the time, I want to see you, I want to touch you. When I kissed you goodbye I am afraid I was rough with you and you did not want my kiss. I did not mean to repel you. I felt anger and desire, all mixed up at that moment, and had no care what you might be feeling. I hope to God that the kiss did not frighten you. You see, Hannah, I think I am in love with you.

      I tell you this because I don’t know what else to do with this hot stir of feelings in my heart and in my body. I cannot sleep and I cannot eat. I am doing everything I should do and yet I cannot settle to anything. Forgive me if this offends you, but what am I to do? Surely I should tell you? If we were married we would share this secret in the marriage bed – but I cannot even think about being wedded and bedded with you, it heats my blood even to think of you as my wife.

      Please write back to me as soon as you read this and tell me what you want. I would tear this up rather than have you laugh at it. Perhaps it would be better if I did not send it. It can join the other letters that I have written to you but never sent. There are dozens of them. I cannot tell you what I feel. I cannot tell you in a letter what I want. I cannot tell you how much I feel, how much I want you.

      I wish to God you would write to me. I wish to God I could make you understand the fever that I am in.

      Daniel

      A woman ready for love would have replied at once, a girl ready for womanhood would have at least sent some sort of reply. I read it through very carefully, and then I put it at the back of a fire and burned it, as if I would burn my desire to ashes, along with his letter. At least I had the honesty to recognise my desire. I had felt it when he had held me in the shadowy press room, it had blazed up when he had crushed me to him when we parted at the wagon. But I knew that if I replied to him, he would come to fetch me, and then I would be his wife and a woman tamed. This was a man who believed that God had ordained him to be my natural master. A woman who loved him would have to learn obedience, and I was not yet ready to be an obedient wife.

      Besides, I had no time to think about Daniel, or about my future. The messenger from London had brought papers for Elizabeth as well as me. When I entered her rooms I found her wound up to breaking pitch at the prospect of her sister’s marriage, and her own disinheritance. She was stalking the room like a furious cat. She had received a cold message from the queen’s chamberlain that Philip of Spain had left his country and was sailing for his new home of England, that the court would meet him at Winchester – but Elizabeth herself was not invited. And – as if to add insult to Elizabeth’s hurt pride – she was to send me to join the queen and the court at once, on receipt of these orders. The fool was valued more than the princess. My service to Elizabeth was to be put aside, I imagined that it would be forgotten as Elizabeth was currently forgotten.

      ‘This is to insult me,’ she spat.

      ‘It will not be the queen’s doing,’ I said, soothingly. ‘It will just be the gathering of her court.’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ